THE INFLUENCE OF TYPE OF HIGH SCHOOL ATTENDED ON UNIVERSITY PERFORMANCE*

It is widely reported that the main determinant of success at university is the score on university entrance exams. Recent studies have argued that the outcomes at university also differ according to the type of high school attended. This paper examines the impact of attending a non‐Government school on the marks of first‐year university students. Non‐Government school students are found to have lower marks at university than Government school students, with the mark differential being slightly larger for those who do not perform well at tertiary study. The main factors influencing the size of the gap between the university marks of students from Government and non‐Government schools are university entrance exam results and attendance at same‐sex high schools.     

The Effects of Individual and School Factors on University Students' Academic Performance

This article examines the factors that influence university students'academic performance, focusing on the role of student background and school factors. Using data on the first‐year students at the University of Western Australia in 2001, two methodologies are employed. The first is analogous to an input‐output approach, and the second is a random coefficients model. A key finding is that high schools have an impact on the academic performance of students at university beyond students' own background characteristics. Both immersion and reinforcement effects are identified.     

How Would One Extra Year of High School Affect Academic Performance in University? Evidence from an Educational Policy Change

This paper uses a unique policy change in Ontario, Canada, to provide direct evidence on how reducing the length of high school would impact student performance in university. After a five‐year educational program was eliminated from Ontario high schools and replaced with a four‐year program, two graduating cohorts with different amounts of high school education simultaneously entered university. The results demonstrate that students who receive one less year of high school education perform significantly worse than their counterparts in all subjects, even after the age difference between the cohorts is accounted for.     

HOW DO HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES IN JAPAN COMPETE FOR REGULAR,FULL‐TIME JOBS? AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS BASED UPON AN INTERNET SURVEY OF THE YOUTH*

We use a survey of Japanese youth within 10 years after high school graduation to investigate impacts of academic and social skills on their success in the job market. We find three major factors account for the job market outcome immediately after school: school characteristics and job‐placement services, academic performance, and social skills, including negative impacts of problematic behaviors at school. Second, when we run a probit regression on whether or not the surveyed individuals hold regular, full‐time jobs, we find the persistent but declining (over age) impact of the job placement immediately after school. Moreover, we find that the impact of variables pertaining to social skills remain significant even after controlling for the job‐placement outcome after school, whereas other variables, such as grade point average or attributes of high schools, are largely irrelevant to the current employment status.     

Impact of individual characteristics and sociocultural environment on academic success

This article aims at ascertaining the factors of academic success and failure of 1,980 freshmen enrolled for the first time at the University of Brussels in 1987, by means of an ordered probit methodology. The results confirm the impact of variables characterizing social as well as cultural capital of the students. They highlight the significant impact of schooling record prior to attending a university and suggest the importance of variables such as sex and nationality. The results illustrate the respective roles of mothers in transmitting verbal skills and of siblings in conveying "inside information" on university life. Finally, they stress the essential role played by ability, which is proxied by a filtered measure of high school results.The authors would like to thank A. de Palma, F. Thys-Clément, and A. Micomibi for their comments, as well as R. Kurgan-Van Hetenryk.     

Estimating the benefit of high school for university‐bound students: evidence of subject‐specific human capital accumulation

Numerous studies suggest that the value of high school education is large for potential dropouts, yet we know much less about the benefits for students who will go on to post‐secondary education. To help fill this gap I measure, using a recent Ontario high school reform, the value‐added (in terms of university grades) of an extra year of high‐school mathematics for university‐bound students. The estimated benefit is small for these students: 2.3 points on a 100‐point scale. This evidence helps to explain why the literature has found only modest effects of taking more mathematics in high school on wages.     

Does Attending a Catholic School Make a Difference? Evidence From Italy

This paper analyses whether attending a Catholic high school in Italy yields higher benefits in student achievement compared with enrolment at a public school. Because a measure of the success of a given high school might be how its students perform after leaving high school, our attention is focused on university participation and the risk of university dropout. We find that attending a Catholic school increases the likelihood of enrolling at university but has no effect on dropout behaviour. Additionally, our findings show that the source of the effectiveness of Catholic schools in boosting university participation does not lie in better resource availability, peer group influences or positive selection.     

The negative effect of NCAA football bowl bans on university enrolment and applications

Universities provide consumption amenities to students in addition to their educational services. Collegiate sports programs have been characterized as one of these consumption amenities. Previous research has shown that athletic success has a positive impact on both the quantity and quality of students attending a university. Alternatively, we analyse if athletic malfeasance, as measured by NCAA postseason bans of football programs, negatively affects either the quantity or quality of student applications or enrolment. Our findings suggest that athletic malfeasance that results in a postseason football bowl ban lowers the quantity of applications, admittances and enrolment to a university. In addition, we find that universities respond to decreased application numbers by increasing their admission rates, while students who are admitted to the school enrol at the same rate as before the ban. Thus, the reduced enrolment is the result of a smaller applicant pool and not the result of a lower rate of enrolment. Lastly, we do not detect any reduction in student quality at the sanctioned university. Our results demonstrate that impropriety by an athletics program directly impacts a university’s non-athlete student enrolment by influencing the amenity mix provided by the university.     

The lack of loan aversion among Canadian high school students

Evidence is presented on the factors that influence take‐up for postsecondary education financing (loans or grants) for high school students. Results show several factors influence the students' decisions about taking loans or grants but the most prominent influence was the price of educational subsidy. A total of 1,248 high school students across Canada participated. Prices for the grants and loans overlapped substantially in order to more clearly distinguish the impact of loan aversion on the decision to take up financial assistance to pursue PSE. The study featured paid experimental decisions (ranging from $25 to $700 in cash and from $500 to $4,000 in education financing), a numeracy assessment, a student survey and a parental telephone survey. The targeted sample included at‐risk high school students: low SES levels, First Nations and first generation students. Participants were marginally sensitive to the form of financing (grant or loan), with no evidence of systematic loan aversion being detected.     

New Evidence on the Effects of the Shortened School Duration in the German States: An Evaluation of Post‐secondary Education Decisions

Most German states have recently reduced the duration of university preparatory schooling from 13 to 12 years without changing the graduation requirements. We use nationwide data on high school graduates and the different timing of reform introduction in the federal states to identify the effects on post‐secondary education decisions and to evaluate potential effect mechanisms. The results show that university enrolment of female students decreased in the first year after graduation in all analyzed states, whereas participation in voluntary service or staying abroad increased. Furthermore, students from non‐academic families are more affected than students from an academic family background.     

浅谈新疆籍民考民预科学生特点——以黄河科技学院民族学院预科学生为基础研究对象

民族预科教育是我国高等教育的特殊层次,是提高少数民族素质,培养少数民族人才,振兴少数民族地区经济的重要举措。民族预科生与普通大学本科生相比,由于身份和背景差别从而具有特殊的思想、心理、学习、交往和宗教信仰等特殊的行为。只有深入细致地研究他们的这些特点,分析他们的行为表现,找出规律,采取有效的措施,才能帮助他们适应新的大学生活,实现从高中到大学学习的有序过渡。     

Do Parental Networks Pay Off? Linking Children's Labor‐Market Outcomes to Their Parents' Friends

In this paper, we examine whether children are better off if their parents have more elaborate social networks. Using data on high‐school friendships of parents, we analyze whether the number and characteristics of friends affect the labor‐market outcomes of children. While parental friendships formed in high school appear long lasting, we find no significant impact on their children's occupational choices and earnings prospects. These results do not change when we account for network endogeneity, network persistency, and network measurement error. Only when children enter the labor market do friends of parents have a marginally significant but small influence on their occupational choice.     

Double Standards in Educational Standards – Do Schools with a Disadvantaged Student Body Grade More Leniently?

A simple model of decentralized graduation standards is presented. It is shown that a school whose students are disadvantaged on the labor market applies less demanding standards because such students have lower ability or less incentives to graduate. The model's predictions are tested using Dutch school‐level data. Since students in the Netherlands have to participate in both a central and a school specific examination, we can identify the grading policy of individual schools. We find that schools which harbor greater shares of disadvantaged students tend to set lower standards. This association is most pronounced in the track of secondary schooling that prepares for university.     

DOES ATHLETIC SUCCESS INFLUENCE PERSISTENCE AT HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS? NEW EVIDENCE USING PANEL DATA

This study examines the relationship between athletic success and student persistence toward a degree. We build an updated panel of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I institutions and utilize within‐institution variation to identify the effects of athletic success. Using a ranking of all institutions, we find that having more successful men's basketball and football teams has a significant positive effect on first‐year retention rates. We also find some evidence that improved basketball rankings increase graduation rates, and that success in the NCAA tournament may have a sizable impact on retention. Although the estimated effects are generally modest in scale, we find rather limited evidence of other institutional factors affecting persistence, suggesting that athletics can be one avenue for institutions of higher education to engage and retain students. (JEL I23, Z20, L83)     

MARCH MADNESS: NCAA TOURNAMENT PARTICIPATION AND COLLEGE ALCOHOL USE

While athletic success may improve the visibility of a university to prospective students and thereby benefit the school, it may also increase risky behavior in the current student body. Using the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, we find that a school's participation in the NCAA Basketball Tournament is associated with a 47% increase in binge drinking by male students at that school. Additionally, we find evidence that drunk driving increases by 5% among all students during the tournament. (JEL I12, I23, Z28)     

Industrial actions in schools: strikes and student achievement

Many jurisdictions ban teacher strikes on the assumption that they negatively affect student achievement, but there is surprisingly little research on this question. The majority of existing studies make cross‐section comparisons of the achievement of students who do or do not experience a strike. They conclude that strikes do not have an impact. I present new estimates of this impact of strikes using an empirical strategy that controls for fixed student characteristics at the school cohort level, and a sample of industrial actions by teachers in the province of Ontario. The results indicate that teacher strikes in grades 5 or 6 have a negative, statistically significant impact on test score growth between grade 3 and grade 6. The largest impact is on math scores: 29% of the standard deviation of test scores across school/grade cohorts.     

The impact of NCAA men’s basketball probations on the quantity and quality of student applications and enrollment

Collegiate sports programmes have been characterized as the front porch of a university, serving to publicize the institution and draw students to the door. Previous research in this area has indicated a positive correlation between athletic success and the quantity and quality of students attending the university. Conversely, we seek to analyse if athletic malfeasance, as measured by NCAA probations of men’s basketball programmes, negatively affects either the quantity or quality of students at a university. Our findings suggest that while basketball probations do not change the overall quantity of applications nor enrolment at a university, there is a significant adverse impact on the quality of freshman enrolling at the university as measured by Scholastic Aptitude Test scores. Our finding suggests that athletics do indeed serve as a front porch to a university and that athletic sanctions in men’s basketball have a detrimental effect on the average quality of students attending a university.     

再议大学生创业风险意识的培养

创业风险是影响大学生创业成功的一个关键因素。因此,谈及大学生创业,就不能不关注大学生创业风险意识的培养。以大学生创业风险意识的界定为基础,阐述了大学生风险意识现状,提出了大学生创业意识的培养需要实践和课堂相结合的建议及对策。     

大学生择业期望现状及差异性分析研究--以武汉市七所部属高校为例

大学生的就业难问题是家庭、学校和社会希望解决的重点问题,而大学生不合理的择业期望正是造成此问题的一个重要原因。以武汉市七所部属高校为例,通过问卷调查,了解大学生的择业期望,再结合描述性分析和差异性分析,探讨了大学生择业期望中的一些倾向和个体特征的差异性影响。性别、学校层次、学科类别和家庭背景会对大学生的择业行为造成一定的差异性影响。提出了政策建议。     

Is retention beneficial to low-achieving students? Evidence from Portugal

The role of retention as an educational tool to overcome under-achievement is a hotly debated issue, especially given that the results in the literature are not consensual. The Portuguese case is particularly well suited to study this issue: all students must take standardized national exams at specific grades. Moreover, the available dataset tracks the performance of students over time. Therefore, we are able to measure the impact of students’ retention on their subsequent academic performance since we can control for each student’s initial level of ability at the moment of retention. We use a propensity score matching approach, in which retained and promoted 4th grade students are matched according to their socioeconomic characteristics and the scores obtained in national exams. To address potentially remaining endogeneity biases, we also use the culture of retention at school level as an instrumental variable. The results suggest that in some situations retentions may have on average a positive impact on future achievement. However, in the cases where statistically significant impacts are found, the estimated magnitudes are relatively small. Our results are relevant for countries with high retention rates that are considering alternative educational policies to promote students’ achievement.