Three Essays in the Economics of Education

This thesis is made up of three chapters that examine student choices in Canada's higher education system: student choice of major (Chapter 1), of courses (Chapter 2), and to continue in college/university (rather than drop out) (Chapter 3). Chapter 1 studies the gender enrolment gap in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs in university. Conducting a survey at a leading Canadian university, I find that female students are more likely to underestimate their relative ranking than male students. In a follow-up randomized experiment, I provided treatment group students with information about their rankings and about expected future incomes for STEM and non-STEM majors. The treated students became 8.5 percentage points more likely to choose a STEM major, and these effects are driven by female students. The analysis indicates that undergraduate students do not correctly estimate their relative performance, and providing students with precise information helps them make more informed choices, encouraging them to change major to a STEM field. Chapter 2 (joint with Robert McMillan and Hammad Shaikh) examines why university students often seek to enrol in less advanced courses despite being eligible for challenging courses that may be more beneficial for the development of their skills. Through experiments, we find that providing an information session significantly increases the probability of eligible first years enrolling in the more rigorous second-year courses. When we send students emails about the advanced courses rather than invite them to an information session, the effects become statistically insignificant. Our results shed light on the determinants of student course selection. Chapter 3 studies how receiving first-year financial aid affects the second-year student re-enrolment decision. After controlling for institution fixed effects, I find that financial aid, despite its potential to improve student re-enrolment, has statistically insignificant effects. In contrast, student attitudes toward higher education do have statistically significant effects on re-enrolment rates: if students believe that it is a "right decision" to pursue post-secondary education, the probability of re-enrolment increases by 3 percentage points. This chapter demonstrates that student attitudes, rather than financial aid, play a key role in determining student decisions to continue studying.Ph.D