The labor market returns to a for-profit college education
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Authors
Cellini, Stephanie Riegg
Chaudhary, Latika
Subjects
Returns to education
For-profit colleges
NLSY
Earnings
For-profit colleges
NLSY
Earnings
Advisors
Date of Issue
2014
Date
Publisher
Language
Abstract
A lengthy literature estimating the returns to education has largely ignored the for-profit
sector. In this paper, we estimate the earnings gains to for-profit college attendance using
restricted-access data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97).
Using an individual fixed effects estimation strategy that allows us to control for time-
invariant unobservable characteristics of students, we find that students who enroll in
associate’s degree programs in for-profit colleges experience earnings gains of about 10%
relative to high school graduates with no college degree, conditional on employment.
Since associate’s degree students attend for an average of 2.6 years, this translates to a 4%
return per year of education in a for-profit college, slightly lower than estimates of returns
for other sectors found in the literature.
Type
Article
Description
The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2014.10.001
Series/Report No
Department
Graduate School of Business & Public Policy (GSBPP)
Organization
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
We are grateful for financial support from the Ford Foundation (Grant Number 1095-0464).
Funder
Format
Citation
Economics of Education Review, 43 (2014) 125–140
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.