Understanding the Increased Time to the Baccalaureate Degree

摘要提案编号：0351575机构：NBER/University of Pennsylvania NSF认证：增强人体免疫力CEPI： 特纳，萨拉ETITLE：在过去的二十年里，美国完成学士学位所需的时间显著增加。 这一经验观察并不完全符合标准的人力资本理论，但在实证研究中却很少受到关注。在过去的二十年里，了解完成学士学位的时间增加的性质和原因是对帮助人们从课堂过渡到工作场所的更一般的社会科学研究目标的重大贡献。获得学位的时间延长可能反映了收入损失的个人成本和在高等教育市场上的挫折感，同时也包括潜在的经济增长下降的社会成本，因为受过大学教育的工人的供应受到学校和工作之间的权衡的限制。虽然有相当多的证据表明，大学毕业生完成学位所需的时间在过去的四分之一世纪世纪有所增加，但人们对这种转变的性质和原因却知之甚少。 这项研究将研究在美国完成学士学位的时间增加的原因。 它将首先提供一个经验性的描述增加的时间超过四年的规范，在学校的时间延长和中断大学学习之间的区别的性质。 然后，它将确定时间到程度变化的原因。为此，这项研究将采用多个来源的数据，包括当前人口调查和全国青年纵向调查的年度10月文件。一种假设是，最近通过大学管道的人群中的个人在学术或经济上的准备比前几十年少，这意味着选择可能解释了大部分时间的延长。 另一种假设是，学院和大学，特别是大型公共机构学生可用资源的变化可能会限制学生及时完成学业的能力。 将使用收集的数据分析这两种假设。

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.