Effect of Secondary School Fees on Educational Attainment*

In this study, the heterogeneity of the fee abolition process in West German secondary schools is used to identify the effect of school fees on educational attainment and to obtain an estimate of the price elasticity of upper secondary education. The analysis is based on representative individual‐level data from three annual surveys of the German Mikrozensus. While coefficients cannot be estimated precisely, the results suggest that, on average, upper secondary school attainment increased by at least 8 percent in response to the fee abolition. The educational attainment of females appears to be more price sensitive than that of males.