• Media type: E-Book; Report
  • Title: Why Academic Quality in Higher Education Declines
  • Contributor: Meier, Volker [Author]; Schiopu, Ioana Cosmina [Author]
  • imprint: Munich: Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), 2015
  • Language: English
  • Keywords: higher education ; J24 ; I28 ; enrollment ; quality ; higher education systems ; I23 ; I21
  • Origination:
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  • Description: We investigate the choice of quality, or academic content, in higher education in a two-sector model. Individuals are differentiated according to their cost of acquiring human capital. A higher academic quality increases productivity upon training, but is also associated with higher cost of acquiring skill. We consider both a differentiated university system in which quality is tailored to the individual need, and a uniform quality system being politically determined. The former yields a higher income dispersion. Average quality decreases under both systems when the skill premium increases. Moving from a single stage to a two-stage scheme reduces quality in the first stage and increases quality in the second stage. Increasing differentiation in higher education can decrease student effort and skill of medium ability types.
  • Access State: Open Access