The Determinants of Educational Attainment: A Regression Analysis

The level of education an individual completes is likely determined by many variables including, drive or determination, parents’ education, family income, quality of education, innate intelligence, neighborhood demographics, and other factors. In this paper, I will investigate the impact of student determination on years of education. This analysis is based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The NCES national longitudinal study (NLS) of 1988 provides a detailed dataset with appropriate variables and proxies. As a proxy for student determination, I will examine the impact of the survey question, “How far do you think you will make it in school?” on years of education. This question was asked in 1988 to eighth grade students. The response variable, years of education, was obtained from a follow-up study in 2000. I find that student determination is a statistically significant variable but that other factors are more practically significant