The impact of business cycle fluctuations on graduate school enrollment

Matthew T. Johnson

Economics of Education Review, 2013, vol. 34, issue C, 122-134

Abstract: This paper adds to the understanding of student decisions about graduate school attendance by studying the magnitude of the effect of business cycle fluctuations on enrollment. I use data on graduate school enrollment from the Current Population Survey and statewide variation in unemployment rates across time to proxy for changes in business cycle conditions. I find that overall graduate school enrollment is countercyclical for females and acyclical for males. I show that changes in the unemployment rate have non-linear impacts on female enrollment and that poor labor market conditions lead to a substitution from full-time enrollment to part-time enrollment for both genders.

Keywords: Graduate school; Higher education; Business cycles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775713000290
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:34:y:2013:i:c:p:122-134

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2013.02.002

Access Statistics for this article

Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn

More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().