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Tuition Fees and Educational Attainment

Bietenbeck, Jan LU ; Marcus, Jan and Weinhardt, Felix (2020) In DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES 13709. p.1-62
Abstract
Following a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court in 2005, more than half of Germany’s universities started charging tuition fees, which also applied to incumbent students. We exploit this unusual lack of grandfathering together with register data covering the universe of students to show that tuition fees increased degree completion among incumbent students. Investigating mechanisms, we do not find that educational quality changed but that incumbent students raised their study effort. In line with previous international evidence, we also find that tuition fees decreased university enrollment among high school graduates. Combining our results, we show that tuition fees did not change overall educational attainment much because the... (More)
Following a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court in 2005, more than half of Germany’s universities started charging tuition fees, which also applied to incumbent students. We exploit this unusual lack of grandfathering together with register data covering the universe of students to show that tuition fees increased degree completion among incumbent students. Investigating mechanisms, we do not find that educational quality changed but that incumbent students raised their study effort. In line with previous international evidence, we also find that tuition fees decreased university enrollment among high school graduates. Combining our results, we show that tuition fees did not change overall educational attainment much because the positive effect on degree completion offset the negative effect on enrollment. We conclude by discussing policies to increase overall attainment, which take into account the opposing effects of fees around
the zero-price margin. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
I23, I22, I28, tuition fees, higher education
in
DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES
volume
13709
pages
1 - 62
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
412b92b2-0b61-4e58-a6ff-07c4d0a08107
alternative location
https://docs.iza.org/dp13709.pdf
date added to LUP
2022-08-31 13:59:58
date last changed
2023-09-14 13:09:48
@misc{412b92b2-0b61-4e58-a6ff-07c4d0a08107,
  abstract     = {{Following a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court in 2005, more than half of Germany’s universities started charging tuition fees, which also applied to incumbent students. We exploit this unusual lack of grandfathering together with register data covering the universe of students to show that tuition fees increased degree completion among incumbent students. Investigating mechanisms, we do not find that educational quality changed but that incumbent students raised their study effort. In line with previous international evidence, we also find that tuition fees decreased university enrollment among high school graduates. Combining our results, we show that tuition fees did not change overall educational attainment much because the positive effect on degree completion offset the negative effect on enrollment. We conclude by discussing policies to increase overall attainment, which take into account the opposing effects of fees around <br/>the zero-price margin.}},
  author       = {{Bietenbeck, Jan and Marcus, Jan and Weinhardt, Felix}},
  keywords     = {{I23; I22; I28; tuition fees; higher education}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  pages        = {{1--62}},
  series       = {{DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES}},
  title        = {{Tuition Fees and Educational Attainment}},
  url          = {{https://docs.iza.org/dp13709.pdf}},
  volume       = {{13709}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}