How tuition fees affected student enrollment at higher education institutions: the aftermath of a German quasi-experiment

Journal for Labour Market Research

Original Article

Ralf Minor¹ 

[1] Institute of Sociology, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Carl-Zeiß-Straße 3, 07743, Jena, Germany;

关键词: Tuition fees;    Policy evaluation;    Quasi-experiment;    Enrollment;    Panel data analysis;    I23;    I20;    I22;    I28;    H52;    H75;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12651-023-00354-7

 received in 2022-05-09, accepted in 2023-09-08,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

This study examines the impact of the charging of tuition fees between 2006 and 2014 in several German federal states on the number of first-year student enrollments. Since Germany is known for a tuition-free education policy at public institutions, the fundamental question arises of whether, and if so, to what extent, the temporary tuitions influenced the number of first-year-student enrollments. In this regard, Becker’s human capital theory suggests that rising fees should be associated with declining enrollment rates. The analyses to test the hypothesis are based on a longitudinal administrative panel data set for 206 universities and universities of applied sciences from 2003 to 2018; this means there are 3296 observations before, during, and after the tuition treatment. While no previous study has covered the full period of the policy or undertook more aggregate-level analyses, this study applies an analytical research design that uses several panel-data models and robustness checks to examine causal relations based on a quasi-experimental setting. The results of Fixed effects regressions confirm the hypothesized negative impact and even reveal a persistent negative effect of the treatment. The comparison of higher education institutions with and without tuition fees shows that the former institutions lost approximately between 3.8 and 7 percent of their first-year student enrollments on average.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB) 2023

【 图 表 】

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