The Effects of the Introduction of Tuition on College Enrollment in Germany: Results from a Natural Experiment With Special Reference to Students from Low Parental Education Backgrounds.

Tuition;College Enrollment;Germany;Rational Choice Theory;Human Capital Theory;Behavioral Economics;Education;Social Sciences;Higher Education

Kroth, Anna J.Pant, Hans Anand ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Tuition;    College Enrollment;    Germany;    Rational Choice Theory;    Human Capital Theory;    Behavioral Economics;    Education;    Social Sciences;    Higher Education;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/111597/ankroth_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

Many wealthy countries outside of the US have traditionally provided public higher education free of charge to students. However, due to growing enrollments, fiscal pressures and political objections to increased public spending, an international trend to introduce tuition has emerged. Whereas tuition is a controversial policy issue in many wealthy counties outside of the US, relatively little is known about how the introduction of moderate tuition affects college enrollment in these countries. Methodological challenges, such as a lack of valid comparison groups, often limit the validity of the existing estimates. It is also unclear whether the effects found in the US apply to other institutional contexts and how the introduction of tuition affects the enrollment decisions of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. This dissertation is able to address these methodological challenges by using a natural experiment design. In 2006, six German states introduced tuition in the moderate amount of €1,000 per year, while the other ten states did not. Students in the states without tuition can therefore be used as a comparison group. Using a differences- in-difference analysis, I find no evidence that the introduction of moderate tuition affects college enrollment in Germany in general. While high school graduates from college-educated family backgrounds are not affected by moderate tuition, their peers whose parents do not have a college degree are sensitive to tuition, even when the tuition level is minimal compared to international levels. After tuition was introduced, the enrollment probability of high school graduates from low parental education backgrounds dropped by six percentage points (from a baseline of 42%) relative to students from high parental education backgrounds in tuition-states and relative to the change in the enrollment gap by parental education in non-tuition-states. Implications for empirical research, theoretical perspectives on college enrollment, and tuition policy are discussed.