Who Benefits Most from College? Evidence for Negative Selection in Heterogeneous Economic Returns to Higher Education

Jennie E. Brand; Yu Xie

doi:10.1177/0003122410363567

Who Benefits Most from College?

Evidence for Negative Selection in Heterogeneous Economic Returns to Higher Education

^aUniversity of California-Los Angeles
^bUniversity of Michigan

Jennie E. Brand, Department of Sociology, University of California-Los Angeles, 264 Haines Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1551 E-mail: brand{at}soc.ucla.edu

Abstract

In this article, we consider how the economic return to a college education varies across members of the U.S. population. Based on principles of comparative advantage, scholars commonly presume that positive selection is at work, that is, individuals who are most likely to select into college also benefit most from college. Net of observed economic and noneconomic factors influencing college attendance, we conjecture that individuals who are least likely to obtain a college education benefit the most from college. We call this theory the negative selection hypothesis. To adjudicate between the two hypotheses, we study the effects of completing college on earnings by propensity score strata using an innovative hierarchical linear model with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. For both cohorts, for both men and women, and for every observed stage of the life course, we find evidence suggesting negative selection. Results from auxiliary analyses lend further support to the negative selection hypothesis.

Article Notes

Jennie E. Brand is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California-Los Angeles. She is also a faculty affiliate at the California Center for Population Research. Her research focuses on the relationship between socioeconomic background, educational attainment, job conditions, and socioeconomic attainment and well-being over the life course. This substantive focus accompanies a methodological focus on causal inference and the application and innovation of statistical models for panel data. Current research projects include evaluation of heterogeneous effects of programs to assist disadvantaged students and higher education on socioeconomic outcomes, and the social consequences of job displacement.
Yu Xie is Otis Dudley Duncan Distinguished University Professor of Sociology and Statistics at the University of Michigan. He is also a Research Professor at the Population Studies Center and Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research, and a Faculty Associate at the Center for Chinese Studies. His main areas of interest are social stratification, demography, statistical methods, Chinese studies, and sociology of science. His recently published works include Women in Science: Career Processes and Outcomes (Harvard University Press 2003) with Kimberlee Shauman and Marriage and Cohabitation (University of Chicago Press 2007) with Arland Thornton and William Axinn.
Financial support for this research was provided by the National Institutes of Health, Grant 1 R21 NR010856-01.
Versions of this article were presented at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Department of Sociology at Yale University, the Department of Sociology at the University of California-Los Angeles, Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the Center for Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University, the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, and the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.