How much does degree choice matter?

TY - JOUR

T1 - How much does degree choice matter?

AU - Britton, Jack William

AU - Dickson, Matt

N1 - Crown Copyright © 2022 Published by Elsevier B.V

PY - 2022/12/1

Y1 - 2022/12/1

N2 - We use a large and novel administrative dataset to investigate returns to different university ‘degrees’ (subject-institution combinations) in the United Kingdom. Conditioning on a rich set of background characteristics, we find substantial variation in returns across degrees with similar selectivity levels, suggesting students’ degree choices matter a lot for later-life earnings. Returns increase with university selectivity much more at the top of the selectivity distributionthan further down, and much more for some subjects than others. Returns are poorly correlated with observable degree characteristics other than selectivity, which could have important implications for student choices and the incentives of universities.

AB - We use a large and novel administrative dataset to investigate returns to different university ‘degrees’ (subject-institution combinations) in the United Kingdom. Conditioning on a rich set of background characteristics, we find substantial variation in returns across degrees with similar selectivity levels, suggesting students’ degree choices matter a lot for later-life earnings. Returns increase with university selectivity much more at the top of the selectivity distributionthan further down, and much more for some subjects than others. Returns are poorly correlated with observable degree characteristics other than selectivity, which could have important implications for student choices and the incentives of universities.

U2 - 10.1016/j.labeco.2022.102268

DO - 10.1016/j.labeco.2022.102268

M3 - Article

SN - 0927-5371

VL - 79

JO - Labour Economics

JF - Labour Economics

M1 - 102268

ER -