Higher education and migration

This dissertation takes an in-depth look at the pathways to higher education in the U.S., focusing on two key facets: college choice behavior of high school graduates, and internal migration patterns of young educated adults in the U.S. (high school graduates and college graduates). This dissertation should be of great interest to higher education and migration scholars since it contributes to the literature on the determinants of mobility, especially at the top of the distribution of skills. In addition, this dissertation helps identify the factors that are amenable to policy influence by state legislators and university officials in order to target their desired student population. In Chapter 2, I empirically examine the role of academic ability and other factors in influencing a high school graduate’s decision to attend college in-state or out-of-state. I find that higher academic ability students as well as high school graduates who plan to major in engineering/computer science are more likely to leave their home states to attend out-of-state colleges. Thus, states which are net exporters of high school graduates for college are likely to pay a price down the road in terms of a smaller engineering and computer science labor force. Further, these states are experiencing a brain-drain since they tend to lose their best and brightest homegrown college-bound students to other states. I also find that an increase in state financial aid, especially need-based grant aid, and a reduction in the price of attending an in-state public college are policy levers available to state legislators for successfully recruiting high school graduates to attend college in their home states. In Chapter 3, I examine the impact of out-of-state college attendance in the U.S. and immigrant status on the probability of out-migrating from the college state after graduation. I find that out-of-state college attendance is positively associated with out-migration after graduation. Also, contrary to popular belief, foreign-born graduates are not more likely to move out of their college state after graduation, as compared to the U.S. born. A detailed analysis reveals that graduate school attendance is the main cause for the ‘sticky’ behavior of foreign-born graduates. In Chapter 4, I examine differences in selectivity of college attended by family income, and determine how these gaps vary across the student ability distribution and over time. I find that family income has a significant positive impact on the selectivity of college attended. However, conditioning on factors like ability (measured by standardized test scores), the positive income effect is diminished. A look across the joint income-ability distribution reveals that while low ability students are mainly constrained along the extensive margin, high ability-low income students are constrained on the quality margin. Further, I find that, for high ability students, the effect of family income has declined over time.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Ritu Sapr