Addressing Special Education Staffing Shortages: Strategies for Schools
Category: Staffing, Finance, and Operations
There is a large and growing number of non-degree credential offerings between a high school diploma and a bachelor's degree, as well as degree programs beyond a bachelor’s degree. Nevertheless, research on the financial returns to non-degree credentials and degree-granting programs is often narrow and siloed. To fill this gap, we leverage a national sample of individuals across nine MSAs and four industries to examine the relative financial returns to a variety of non-degree credentials and degree programs. Leveraging fixed-effect models, we explore the relationship between completing a credential or degree and earnings premiums. We find that an associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degree follows a similar model of returns in which the number of schooling years is linearly related to proportional earnings premiums. However, students completing sub-baccalaureate certificates and post-baccalaureate certificates appear to get larger financial returns for less time. Nevertheless, the returns to both non-degree credentials and degree granting programs generally favored males over females and non-binary persons, as well White and Asian individuals over Black and Hispanic individuals, which suggests a potential maintenance of inequality.
Keywords
Education economics; financial returns; non-degree credentials
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/qweg-h532
