What Drives Enrolment Gaps in Further Education? The Role of Beliefs in Sequential Schooling Decisions

Abstract

We study students’ motives to obtain sixth form and university education in a sample of 885 secondary school students in the UK. At each educational stage, perceptions about the consumption value of education explain a substantial share of the variation in students’ intentions to obtain further education, while beliefs about the monetary benefits and costs are not found to play an important role. Beliefs about the consumption value of university predict not only students’ intentions to go to university but also their intentions to go to sixth form, highlighting the importance of dynamic considerations in the choice. We further document that students’ beliefs about the consumption value of further schooling strongly predict students’ perceptions about how likely it is that they will obtain the necessary grades to proceed to the next educational stage. Differences in the perceived consumption value across gender and socioeconomic groups can account for a sizeable proportion of the gender and socioeconomic gaps in students’ intentions to pursue further education as well as in their perceptions about their own performance.

Information Provision and Postgraduate Studies

“…As before, and in line with the existing literature, we find that these two measures of perceptions of pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns matter (Boneva and Rauh, 2017;Belfield et al, 2019).…”

“…One key finding is that students of nonacademic background, in particular those with intentions to enroll, are more likely to pursue college education if they have received information about its benefits. Moreover, an existing literature on individuals' beliefs about returns to educational investment shows that besides pecuniary, especially non-pecuniary returns can explain educational decisions (Boneva and Rauh, 2017;Belfield et al, 2019). This paper differs from this literature because we study postgraduate education decisions.…”

Estimating Students' Valuation for College Experiences

“…There is some work that documents systematic differences in the perceived non-pecuniary returns and valuation of a university education: Delavande et al, 2020 find that non-white British students enjoy university lectures less. Likewise, college experiences are valued differently by parental income and first-generation status of UK students (Belfield et al, 2020;Boneva and Rauh, 2019;Boneva et al, 2020). Jacob et al, 2018 also show that only high-SES and high-ability students in the US have a positive WTP for instructional spending.…”

Family Background and the Responses to Higher Sat Scores

“…Hastings et al (2016) show how beliefs about costs and returns to different college options are related to college choices in Chile. Belfield et al (2019) and Boneva and Rauh (2019) highlights large socioeconomic gaps in beliefs about non-pecuniary benefits of university education in the UK, which can account for a sizeable proportion of the socioeconomic gaps in students intentions to pursue higher education.…”