Elite Schools and Opting In: Effects of College Selectivity on Career and Family Outcomes

Suqin Ge, Elliott Isaac and Amalia Miller

No 25315, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using College and Beyond data and a variant on Dale and Krueger’s (2002) matched-applicant approach, this paper revisits the question of how attending an elite college affects later-life outcomes. We expand the scope along two dimensions: we examine new outcomes related to labor force participation, human capital, and family formation and we do not restrict the sample to full-time full-year workers. For men, our findings echo those in Dale and Krueger (2002): controlling for selection eliminates the positive relationship between college selectivity and earnings. We also find no significant effects on men’s educational or family outcomes. The results are quite different for women: we find effects on both career and family outcomes. Attending a school with a 100-point higher average SAT score increases women’s probability of advanced degree attainment by 5 percentage points and earnings by 14 percent, while reducing their likelihood of marriage by 4 percentage points. The effect of college selectivity on own earnings is significantly larger for married than for single women. Among married women, selective college attendance significantly increases spousal education.

JEL-codes: I23 I26 J12 J16 J22 J23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published as Suqin Ge & Elliott Isaac & Amalia Miller, 2022. "Elite Schools and Opting In: Effects of College Selectivity on Career and Family Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, vol 40(S1), pages S383-S427.

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