PREFERENCES, PERCEPTIONS, AND EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT

This dissertation attempts to answer the question Why do some adolescents pursue college while others do not? In attempting to answer this question my focus is on what I call college-encouraging preferences and perceptions, which are preferences and perceptions that make adolescents more likely to pursue college. The model I develop engages the rational choice literature in both economics and sociology, but it deals primarily with considerations outside the scope of traditional rational choice models. I deal with preferences and perceptions but not only those relating to pecuniary costs and benefits. Also, unlike most rational choice perspectives, I focus on interpersonal variation in preferences and perceptions and how this variation affects college entry decisions. I analyze two preferences and two perceptions: preferences for academic activities, preferences for various labor-market outcomes, perceptions of the ability to complete college, and perceptions of the effect of education on labor-market outcomes. Using both propensity-score matching and regression estimators, I find that preferences for academic activities increase educational expectations, preferences fo