Published in:Melbourne Institute Working Paper ; No. 12/21
Extent:
1 Online-Ressource (75 p)
Language:
English
DOI:
10.2139/ssrn.3898314
Identifier:
Origination:
Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments July 7, 2021 erstellt
Description:
We analyse the effects of a national reform of higher education financing on the decisionmaking of secondary school students in the Netherlands. The reform eliminated a universalsubsidy for higher education students and replaced it by a low-interest loan, causing asubstantive increase in the private costs of higher education. We show that the reform had alarge impact on students’ decision making, decreasing the share of secondary school studentsfollowing college-preparing tracks by 6.8 percentage points. The reform also affectedstudents’ subject specialization choices, and the living arrangements of new college entrants.We show that secondary school students respond to the costs of higher education well aheadof their graduation, which has important consequences for the design of empirical studies ofhigher education financing. It also shows that policy uncertainty regarding financial aid issufficient to deter many students from pursuing higher education