This study measures college quality by the amount by which the college adds to the salary of its students above what the median market value would be for the same majors and student quality. Commonly used national rankings of colleges such as U.S. News and World Report or Forbes are heavily biased by a college's average salaries and the quality of…

This study analyzes college graduates in the workplace to evaluate the effects of horizontal mismatches between education and jobs on wages and mobility. Using the Heckman-Lee and probit models, this study shows that a gender wage gap still exists. However, the size of the gender wage differential depends on the extent of mismatch. Specifically,…

This paper addresses international student migration, return migration and labor market entry by examining the effects of graduate educational migration on employment, type of employment, wage and wait time to obtain employment. Using primary data collected in 2021 on 1774 burkinabè graduates, including non-migrants and migrants (returnees and…

Using two representative samples of some 74,000 students and 11,000 graduates, respectively, we analyse the accuracy of students' wage expectations given their individual characteristics. We find that students are aware of the effects of most of their own characteristics, as a large number of determinants of expected and realised salaries do not…

Using a sample of college graduates from the NLSY97, we introduce a new approach to assessing wage benefits of STEM training, STEM jobs, and the match between the two: rather than classify individuals dichotomously as STEM or non-STEM, we measure the STEM-intensities of both their college coursework and their occupational requirements. While the…

This paper assesses the impact of the mismatch between a college major and job on college graduates' early career earnings using a sample from China. On average, a major-job mismatched college graduate is found to suffer from an income loss that is much lower than the penalty documented in previous studies. The income losses are also found to be…

This paper analyzes the impact of university quality, family background and mismatch on the wages of young Italian graduates. An empirical analysis is undertaken using a representative sample of graduates merged with a dataset containing information on the characteristics of universities. By utilizing quantile regression techniques, some evidence…

In this paper, we explore whether there is a relationship between average grades earned in a course and the national average salaries of graduates of the major associated with the course. Using student-level data from a selective private liberal arts college, we find an inverse relationship. The result suggests that students face a trade-off…

Economic tradeoffs students place on location, salary, distances to natural resource amenities, size of the city where the job is located, and commuting times for their first college graduate job are estimated using a mixed logit model for a sample of Texas A&M University students. The Midwest is the least preferred area having a mean salary…

This paper examines how college educational debt affects various post-baccalaureate decisions of bachelor's degree recipients. I employ the Baccalaureate and Beyond 93/97 survey data. Using college-aid policies as instrumental variables to correct for the endogeneity of student college debt level, I find that for public college graduates, college…

Using data on German university graduates, this paper analyzes wage differentials by field of study at labor market entry and five to six years later. At both points of time, graduates from arts/humanities have lower average monthly wages compared to other fields. Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions show that these wage differentials can be explained…

States differ substantially in higher education policies. Little is known about the effects of state policies on the performance of public colleges and universities, largely because no clear measures of college quality exist. In this paper, I estimate the average quality of public colleges of US states based on the value-added to individuals'…

Proposes a measure of value added in (British) higher education, based on earning differentials between graduates and nongraduates. Calculates a monetary measurement of value for each different class of degree. This enables researchers to estimate the social-return rate of different degree classes and provides a performance indicator for resource…

Uses a survey of (British) college graduates from two cohort years (1985 and 1990) to examine determinants of overeducation (mismatch for jobs requiring degrees). Cross-sectional measures of mismatch obscure significant changes for individuals over time. Job satisfaction and earnings are significantly adversely affected by mismatch. (23…

Estimates male-female earnings differentials for a 1979 sample of employed university graduates in Egypt. Just over 25 percent of the gross earnings differential between men and women remains "unexplained." This differential, usually attributed to discrimination, is small compared with results obtained from other countries. (Contains 46…