Informal institutions are defined as socially shared rules that guide individuals' behaviors outside of officially sanctioned channels. This paper investigates the link between individual educational attainment and education-related informal institutions by examining second-generation immigrants in the USA. I measure the education-related informal…

Nordic welfare states have been very successful at reducing poverty and inequality among their citizens. However, the presence of a strong social safety net in these countries has not solved the problem of "socioeconomic exclusion", manifesting in such outcomes as chronic unemployment and welfare dependency. In an effort to understand…

The purpose of this study was to explore opportunity costs of postsecondary education in the U.S. in the past three decades (1975-2005), as a measure to support investment decisions at national levels and as experienced by individuals deciding on pursuing further education. Based on human capital theory and inspired by a set of studies aiming at…

This article documents a model for forecasting earnings of the nontraditional student based on macrolevel changes in educational attainment within the workforce using data from the U.S. Census Bureau. It also presents a theoretical case that illustrates the value of improving one's educational attainment level in order to sustain an annualized…

Going directly from high school to college is not possible for everyone. Many who go to college will not do so straight out of high school, and many more need to work to pay for college. Good jobs for people without college degrees certainly still exist, although they are on a steady decline as computers and related technology take over routine…

The purpose of this study is to examine resource allocation patterns and the predictive power of these resources in increasing the likelihood of four-year college enrollment among academically qualified, low-income students. Using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study, college choice decision-making is conceptualized in relation to an…

This paper examines the effect of teenagers' outlooks--specified as their locus of control--on educational attainment and labor market outcomes. I replicate the study of Coleman and DeLeire (2003) and test the predictions of their theoretical model using a different data set--National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). The findings fail to…