The Earnings Payoff from Attending a Selective College

• In Event: 244 - Regular Session. Inequality and Privilege in Education

Abstract

Studies relating the selectivity of colleges to the earnings of their graduates report inconsistent findings. Some find no effects; most report statistically significant but quite small earnings benefits from attending a more selective college; and a few studies report large effects. Analyzing two recent national longitudinal studies of college graduates, with models sensitive to selection bias, we find large earnings payoffs from attending a highly selective college. However, those returns are uneven: full-time working women graduates earn a lot less than their male counterparts from equivalent colleges, college majors pay differently, and class background also affects earnings over and above one’s college’s selectivity.

Authors

• Dirk Witteveen, City University of New York, The Graduate Center

• Paul A. Attewell, CUNY, Graduate Center