Understanding the Increased Time to the Baccalaureate Degree

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ABSTRACTPROPOSAL NO: 0351575INSTITUTION: NBER/University of VirginiaNSF PROGRAM: EHANCING HUMAN PERFORMANCEPI: Turner, Sara ETITLE: Understanding the Increased Time to the Baccalaureate DegreeTime taken to complete the Baccalaureate degree in the US has significantly increased over the last two decades. This empirical observation does not fit neatlyinto standard human capital theory and yet has received little attention in empirical research. Understanding the nature and cause(s) of the increase in the time to completion of the baccalaureate degree over the last two decades is a significant contribution to the more general social science research objective of helping people to transition from the classroom to the workplace. Extended time-to-degree may reflect personal costs of lost earnings and frustration in the higher education market, while also encompassing the social cost of potentially reduced economic growth as the supply of college-educated workers is limited by tradeoffs between school and work. While there is considerable evidence that the time college graduates take to finish theirdegrees has increased over the last quarter century, there is little understanding of thenature and causes of this shift. This research will study the causes of the increase in time to finish the Baccalaureate degree in the US. It will first provide an empirical description of the nature of increase of time-to-degree beyond the four-year norm, distinguishing between extension of time in school and interruptions in collegiate study. It will then identify the causes of variation in time-to-degree. To do so, this research will employ data from multiple sources including the annual October files of the Current Population Survey and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. One hypothesis is that individuals in more recent cohorts moving through the collegiate pipeline are less academically or financially prepared than those in prior decades, implying that selection may explain much of the extension in time-to-degree. An alternative hypothesis is that changes in the resources available to students at colleges and universities, particularly large public institutions, may limit the ability of students to complete their studies in a timely fashion. Both hypotheses will be analyzed using the data assembled.