Students’ expectations of the economic returns to college education: results of a controlled experiment

Abstract

This study reports the results of an experiment designed to elicit students' subjective beliefs about the economic returns to college education. An important feature of our experimental design is the inclusion of financial incentives for accurate reporting. We also consider the extent to which individuals' beliefs about their own returns differ from their beliefs about the returns for others. The evidence shows that students do have a self-enhancement tendency, and this finding cannot be attributed to previously uncontrolled order effects. The evidence also indicates that there is no significant difference between beliefs elicited using hypothetical surveys or real financial incentives in the elicitation procedure. This finding suggests that economists' reluctance to gather subjective data on earnings expectations may not be warrant.

Compensation for Earnings Risk under Worker Heterogeneity

“…Webbink and Hartog (2004) compare an individual's stated expected earnings with realised earnings and find that freshmen are unable to predict their position within the actual distribution of starting salaries after graduation, only four years later: the correlation between prediction and realisation is 0.06. The literature generally indicates that individuals certainly have a fairly good perception of differences in mean earnings between types of education (Botelho and Pinto, 2004;Webbink and Hartog, 2004), but clearly cannot accurately predict their position within each distribution. We firmly believe that this line of research, on direct observation of student perceptions should be extended.…”

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“…For the most part, girls make less ambitious predictions than boys [McMahon, Wagner 1981;Brunello, Lucifora, Winter-Ebmer 2004;Botelho, Pinto 2004;Anchor et al 2011;Smith, Powell 1990;Webbink, Hartog 2004]. This can probably be explained by the fact that boys and girls see their post-graduation roles differently, e. g. girls can envisage parenting, not just working.…”

“…Income, another critical socioeconomic characteristic of a household, also exerts considerable influence on students' salary expectations [Gamboa, Rodríguez 2014;Botelho, Pinto 2004;Smith, Powell 1990;Webbink, Hartog 2004;Andrushchak, Natkhov 2010]. First, students from higher-income families tend to expect higher earnings themselves.…”

Ha a jegyek nem elég jók... Az önértékelés szerepe a felsőoktatásba való jelentkezésben

“…Korábbi kutatások azt mutatják, hogy ez a hipotézis nagyrészt helyes, legalábbis abban a tekintetben, hogy a gazdaságilag fejlett országokban a diákoknak meglehető-sen precíz információik vannak a bizonyos iskolai végzettséggel elérhető keresetekről (Avery-Kane [2004], Varga [2001]), de ez az összefüggés nem feltétlenül teljesül a fejlődő országokban (Jensen [2010]). a diákok általában a saját továbbtanulási beruházá-saik jövőbeli megtérülésével szemben optimistábbak, és azt gondolják, hogy ugyanazzal az iskolai végzettséggel az átlagnál magasabb kereseti hozamot fognak realizálni (Botelho-Pinto [2004]). mindenestre számos országban végzett empirikus elemzés egybehangzóan megállapítja, hogy a munkaerő-piaci keresletre vonatkozó várakozá-sok pozitívan befolyásolják a továbbtanulási hajlandóságot (Betts [1996], Varga [2001], Wolter [2000]).…”