Date of Award
Spring 2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (BA)
Department
Economics
First Advisor
Monica Das
Abstract
This paper examines the impact of higher education choices, such as attending a public college, a private non-profit college, or a private for-profit college, on the future earnings of college graduates. I use institutional-level data from the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard and conduct OLS regression analysis with multiple interaction terms regarding college majors. I also include numerous control variables such as average SAT score, faculty salary, percentage of Pell Grant recipients, and regions. I find that there is a small increase in earnings after five years for STEM majors who attend private non-profit institutions compared to public institutions and for-profit institutions. I find little to no difference in earnings for majors considered humanities. However, the magnitude of the effects is greater when looking solely at the earnings of graduates who are Pell Grant recipients.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Marroquin, Diangelo, "Public vs Private: Evaluating the Economic Value of Higher Education Choices" (2025). Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects. 184.
https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/econ_studt_schol/184