Microeconomic and macroeconomic aspects of higher education.

This dissertation consists of three chapters, each of which considers a different question in the economics of higher education. The first chapter, Liquidity Constraints and the Cyclicality of College Enrollment, adds to the literature about whether some people face liquidity constraints as a barrier to college enrollment. Previous work on college enrollment has suggested that it should be more procyclical among people who face liquidity constraints. Using a sample of 18- and 19-year-olds from the October Current Population Survey over 1968--2000, I find that enrollment by people from households expected to have lower incomes is significantly more procyclical than enrollment by people in households expected to have higher incomes. Since lower-income households are more likely to face liquidity constraints, this suggests that liquidity constraints may have played a role in historical college enrollment patterns. The second chapter, Educational Expenditure and Family Labor Supply, tests the limitations of the life-cycle theory. The life-cycle theory predicts that the average family will smooth labor supply over the aging of children into and out of college age despite considerable changes in family expenditure due to college costs. Using data from husband-wife families in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics over 1974--1991, I find that women married to college-educated men tend to increase their labor supply as their children enter college age and decrease their labor supply as their children leave college age. This finding is contrary to the life-cycle theory and suggests that there may be systematic underplanning when spending on college should be expected to be high. The third chapter, The Responses of State Universities to Changes in the Demand for Public Higher Education, 1980--95, looks at the effects of recent changes in demand for public higher education on tuition, admissions policy, and educational quality at state colleges and universities. Using data from several sources, I find that an increase in the size of the college-age cohort and an increase in the education of the college-age cohort's parents both generally result in an increase in enrollment and a decrease in in-state tuition, acceptance rates, and instructional expenditure per student at four-year state institutions.Ph.D.EducationHigher educationLabor economicsSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/124384/2/3138134.pd