What’s behind Rising Returns to High-Quality
College Education?
“We showed that the effects of high-quality colleges
are exaggerated if one fails to adjust for student composition differences.
When making the adjustment, the effects appear smaller and work mainly through
increasing one’s graduation chances—where one’s degree comes from matters less
for post-college earnings.
However, we also demonstrated that returns to college
quality increased over time and argued that a large part of this increase is
explained by the widening learning ability gap between students attending
low-quality schools and students attending high-quality schools.”