COLLEGE EFFECT HETEROGENEITY

Social science research informs us that a college education confers far-reaching benefits. College graduates are more likely to be employed, have higher wages, and hold jobs of higher status. Their average lifetime income and accumulation of wealth exceeds that of high school graduates. They tend to have better overall physical health, less psychological distress, longer lives, and more stable families. College graduates are also less likely to rely on welfare, and are more civically engaged than their less educated peers. Yet despite these many recognized benefits, and various efforts to increase access to higher education, debates persist regarding whether too many people are going to college and whether college is a sensible choice for all. The rhetoric to limit educational expansion rests, often implicitly, on the notion that those students unlikely to attend college, with more disadvantaged family backgrounds, benefit the least from college. 

In this project, Brand contends that individuals with different backgrounds differ in their benefits of college, yet Brand argues that those who are less likely to attend college have considerable gains, especially in circumventing lives marked by disadvantage. Brand also argues that debates about access to higher education would do well to recognize the relevant counterfactual and the far-reaching benefits – benefit which may be greater for disadvantaged youth on the margin of school continuation than for more typical college going youth. Brand uses various methods to explore the differential impact of college, including propensity-based stratification and causal tress. A book manuscript is being prepared for Russell Sage Foundation.