The causal effect of college quality on wages

During the second half of the 20th century, the educational level has increased substantially in all western countries. The educational expansion has resulted in a transition from an élite system of higher education to a mass system of higher education, w here being a graduate is necessary but no longer sufficient to obtain advantageous positions in the labour market. The process of social selection might become equally dependent on where one went to college as whether one did. Previous research has shown without doubt that there is a bivariate association between the quality of the college attended and wages; students attending high quality colleges have on average higher wages than students attending low quality colleges. What is not adequately answered in the literature is whether this bivariate association is causal. By using high-quality administrative data and advanced statistical methods, the primary aim of this project is to provide more robust evidence on the causal effect of college quality on wa ges. That is, would the students attending high (low) quality college have lower (higher) wages had they attended low (high) quality colleges? Answering this causal question is important if we want to understand the structuring of inequality in modern we stern countries. It implies answering questions like: Does the quality of the teaching and peer environment matters? Does the social networking on campus matter? Do employers value the quality of credentials? Providing answers to these questions is also i mportant for policy makers, deciding whether to invest in high quality colleges, and individual college applicants, deciding whether to attend a high quality college.