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Information Heterogeneity and Intended College Enrollment
Report

Information Heterogeneity and Intended College Enrollment


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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Eye Opening
  • Overview

Recommendation

Most US households inaccurately perceive the costs and benefits of a college education, and that may be why college enrollment has stagnated. That’s the conclusion Fed economists Zachary Bleemer and Basit Zafar reach, albeit with caveats, in their leading-edge research. The authors make a valuable contribution by highlighting how individual assessments can have significant impacts on the broader economy. getAbstract recommends this scholarly report to educators, administrators and those concerned with reversing America’s educational lag.

Summary

Almost one-third of students who graduate from US high schools choose not to attend college, and of those from families in the bottom 20% of earners, half don’t enroll. Enrollment and completion rates in the US have stagnated despite a consistently strong “college premium”: University graduates earn 1.83 times what a nongraduate makes. A persistent disparity in enrollments exists between rich and poor, and between those from households headed by a college graduate and those from noncollege-graduate households. While higher education costs have risen, the “gap between...

About the Authors

Zachary Bleemer is a senior research analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where Basit Zafar is a senior economist.