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Who Scars the Easiest? College Quality and the Effects of Graduating into a Recession

Graduating from college into a recession is associated with earnings losses, but less is known about how these effects vary across colleges. Using restricted-use data from the National Survey of College Graduates, we study how college quality influences the effects of graduating into worse economic conditions in the context of the Great Recession. We find that earnings losses are concentrated among graduates from relatively high-quality colleges. Key mechanisms include substitution out of the labor force and into graduate school, decreased graduate degree completion, and differences in the economic stability of fields of study between graduates of high- and low-quality colleges.

Keywords
higher education, college quality, recession
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/4dz0-4m51

EdWorkingPaper suggested citation:

Anstreicher, Garrett, and Lois Miller. (). Who Scars the Easiest? College Quality and the Effects of Graduating into a Recession. (EdWorkingPaper: 23-761). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/4dz0-4m51

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