Tuition Fees and Educational Attainment
(2023) In European Economic Review 154.- Abstract
- Following a landmark court ruling in 2005, more than half of Germany's universities started charging tuition fees, which were later abolished in a staggered manner. We exploit the fact that even students who were already enrolled had to start paying fees. We show that fees increase study effort and degree completion among these students. However, fees also decrease first-time university enrollment among high school graduates. Combining this enrollment impact with the effect on completion, we find that fees around the zero-price margin have only little effect on overall educational attainment. We conclude by discussing policies targeting the separate effect margins of fees and caution against a general abolition.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/d52d2ac9-c82e-4f28-bb66-72b1eb9a27a2
- author
- Bietenbeck, Jan LU ; Leibing, Andreas ; Marcus, Jan and Weinhardt, Felix
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- European Economic Review
- volume
- 154
- article number
- 104431
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85151027642
- ISSN
- 1873-572X
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104431
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- d52d2ac9-c82e-4f28-bb66-72b1eb9a27a2
- date added to LUP
- 2023-03-10 07:53:38
- date last changed
- 2023-05-16 16:02:51
@article{d52d2ac9-c82e-4f28-bb66-72b1eb9a27a2, abstract = {{Following a landmark court ruling in 2005, more than half of Germany's universities started charging tuition fees, which were later abolished in a staggered manner. We exploit the fact that even students who were already enrolled had to start paying fees. We show that fees increase study effort and degree completion among these students. However, fees also decrease first-time university enrollment among high school graduates. Combining this enrollment impact with the effect on completion, we find that fees around the zero-price margin have only little effect on overall educational attainment. We conclude by discussing policies targeting the separate effect margins of fees and caution against a general abolition.}}, author = {{Bietenbeck, Jan and Leibing, Andreas and Marcus, Jan and Weinhardt, Felix}}, issn = {{1873-572X}}, language = {{eng}}, publisher = {{Elsevier}}, series = {{European Economic Review}}, title = {{Tuition Fees and Educational Attainment}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104431}}, doi = {{10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104431}}, volume = {{154}}, year = {{2023}}, }