New ways of life or old rigidities? Changes in social structures and life courses and their political impacts

Author's comment: Ebenfalls erschienen als: Arbeitspapier des Projektes Political economy and the life course in advanced societies (POLIS

Soziale Ungleichheit beim Hochschulzugang: Wen führt das System der Berufsausbildung zur Universität, wen nicht ... und warum? Überlegungen aus einer humankapitaltheoretischen Perspektive

Author's comment: Ebenfalls erschienen als: Arbeitspapier des Projekts Ausbildungs- und Berufsverläufe der Geburtskohorten 1964 und 1971 in Westdeutschland ;

Projekt "Ausbildungs- und Berufsverläufe der Geburtskohorten 1964 und 1971 in Westdeutschland" : Dokumentation : Teile I-IX [Teil I: Projektüberblick und Projektbeschreibung. Teil II: Fragebogen. Teil III: Variablenliste. Teil IV: Editionshandbuch. Teil V: Nachrecherche. Teil VI: Einzelfallentscheidungen. Teil VII: Vercodung. Teil VIII: Programmdokumentation. Teil IX: Infas-Methodenberichte.] : [CD-ROM]

Bei den "Materialien aus der Bildungsforschung Nr. 79" handelt es sich um die CD-ROM-Ausgabe der Nummer 78 aus der gleichnamigen Schriftenreihe

How did the latest increase in fees in England affect student enrolment and inequality?

This paper presents a first analysis of the increase of undergraduate tuition fees to £9,000 (€11.000) in English higher education in 2012. I use a semi-experimental research design to estimate the effect of the reforms, based on student enrolment data drawn from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Taking into account possible anticipation effects of the fee increase, I find that enrolment declined by 15 % in the treated groups as a result of the tuition fee increase. This number is almost three times higher than what previous studies have found, and may represent a serious long term cost for the English economy. The decline in enrolments is particularly pronounced for students in older age groups and students from the service class and the middle class. No effect is visible for students from the working class, indicating that the reforms did not lead to a much-feared increase in class bias in higher education enrolment. The reforms also seem not to have exacerbated ethnic inequality in higher education, as all ethnic groups were negatively affected by the reforms. These results are consistent with earlier research in the United States and the United Kingdom, although they expand our understanding of student price responsiveness in other important ways. The paper argues that younger and older students face different costs and benefits. Older students may be less certain about their benefits, and therefore be more sensitive towards price increases. The strong decrease in mature learners may require a policy response, taking into account these differing incentives

Who Benefits Most from a University Degree?: A Cross-National Comparison of Selection and Wage Returns in the US, UK, and Germany

Recent research on economic returns to higher education in the United States suggests that those with the highest wage returns to a college degree are least likely to obtain one. We extend the study of heterogeneous returns to tertiary education across multiple institutional contexts, investigating how the relationship between wage returns and the propensity to complete a degree varies by the level of expansion, differentiation, and cost of higher education. Drawing on panel data and matching techniques, we compare findings from the US with selection into degree completion in Germany and the UK. Contrary to previous studies, we find little evidence for population level heterogeneity in economic returns to higher education