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In the
debate over whether expensive and highly selective colleges lead to
higher salaries, the latest answer is "no"—with a few exceptions.
Researchers looked at 12,075 students
enrolled in one of 27 selective public or private colleges in 1976 and
6,480 who entered the same colleges in 1989. A survey called College and
Beyond gathered data from these students in the mid-1990s, but the new
study adds earnings data from the Social Security Administration.
The researchers did not just test the
effect of different colleges on students with similar SAT scores and
high-school grades. They also looked at "unobserved earnings potential,"
that is, hard-to-measure qualities that might come across in
recommendation letters. To account for them, the researchers created a
variable based on the selectivity of the colleges a student applied to
(a sign, they assumed, of the strength of the application).
Once that variable was added, the
effect of school selectivity on earnings dropped effectively to zero,
for both age cohorts. The exceptions: black and Hispanic students and
students whose parents didn't get past high school. Top schools give
such students access to networks otherwise out of reach, the researchers
suggested.
"Estimating the Return to College Selectivity Over
the Career Using Administrative Earnings Data," Stacy Dale and Alan B.
Krueger, NBER Working Paper (June)
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