Time off after high school makes college less likely

Date:
March 3, 2022
Source:
Cornell University
Summary:
Academic breaks after high school -- even those lasting just
a few months -- can cause some students, especially those from
disadvantaged backgrounds, to forgo enrolling in college altogether,
according to new research.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Academic breaks after high school -- even those lasting just a few
months - - can cause some students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to forgo enrolling in college altogether, according to new
Cornell University research.


==========================================================================
In the paper, "Disrupted academic careers: The returns to time off
after high school," Evan Riehl, assistant professor in the ILR School,
and co-author Nicola's de Roux of the Universidad de los Andes found that
even a brief academic break led to an 8% reduction in college enrollment
rates in two regions of Colombia. The researchers found that among those students, the break had the largest impact on those from disadvantaged
academic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

The researchers also found that the academic break reduced the
early-career earnings of high-ability students, but had little impact
on the earnings for less-prepared students.

"In Colombia, as in many countries, college dropout rates are really
high," Riehl said. "There is wide variation in the quality of colleges and
the amount of resources that colleges have to help students graduate. So students must be academically prepared and motivated to earn a degree.

"We find that individuals who were prepared to succeed in college would
have had large returns to attending college, and in this sense they made a 'mistake' by not enrolling," he said. "Other students, however, may have dropped out of college anyway, and so forgoing college did not have a
big impact on their careers." To conduct their study, Riehl and de Roux
took advantage of a policy change that altered academic calendars in two Colombian regions, requiring nearly 30,000 high school graduates to wait
an extra semester to start college. For data, they merged records from
a national standardized high school exit exam to college enrollment and earnings records from the Ministries of Education and Social Protection.

The results of the study suggest that a variety of "mistakes" can arise
in the transition from high school to college, and that there can be
benefits to education systems, like those used in some European countries,
that track students into appropriate postsecondary options.

"In the U.S. and Colombia, students have more flexibility in choosing
which colleges to apply to after high school," wrote the authors. "More flexible education systems can lead to indecision in the transition from
high school to college, and thus create breaks in students' academic
careers. ... The returns to college may be low if students are less
prepared or less motivated."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Cornell_University. Original written
by Julie Greco, courtesy of the Cornell Chronicle. Note: Content may be
edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Nicola's de Roux, Evan Riehl. Disrupted academic careers: The
returns to
time off after high school. Journal of Development Economics,
2022; 156: 102824 DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102824 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220303125018.htm

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