CREAT: Census Research Exploration and Analysis Tool

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

September 2024

Working Paper Number:

CES-24-47

Abstract

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 the effects of graduating into worse economic conditions vary over college quality 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.

Document Tags and Keywords

Keywords Keywords are automatically generated using KeyBERT, a powerful and innovative keyword extraction tool that utilizes BERT embeddings to ensure high-quality and contextually relevant keywords.

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:
economist, recession, college, university, enrollment, graduate, enrollee

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:
National Science Foundation, Department of Education, American Community Survey, Census Bureau Disclosure Review Board, Disclosure Review Board, Federal Statistical Research Data Center

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