The Labor Market Returns to a For-Profit College Education

40 Pages Posted: 25 Aug 2012 Last revised: 13 Feb 2023

See all articles by Stephanie Riegg Cellini

Stephanie Riegg Cellini

George Washington University - School of Public Policy and Public Administration (SPPPA)

Latika Chaudhary

Naval Postgraduate School

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Date Written: August 2012

Abstract

A lengthy literature estimating the returns to education has largely ignored the for-profit sector. In this paper, we estimate the earnings gains to for-profit college attendance using restricted-access data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97). Using an individual fixed effects estimation strategy that allows us to control for time-invariant unobservable characteristics of students, we find that students who enroll in associate's degree programs in for-profit colleges experience earnings gains of about 10 percent relative to high school graduates with no college degree, conditional on employment. Since associate's degree students attend for an average of 2.6 years, this translates to a 4 percent return per year of education in a for-profit college, slightly lower than estimates of returns for other sectors found in the literature.

Suggested Citation

Cellini, Stephanie Riegg R. and Chaudhary, Latika, The Labor Market Returns to a For-Profit College Education (August 2012). NBER Working Paper No. w18343, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2136012

Stephanie Riegg R. Cellini (Contact Author)

George Washington University - School of Public Policy and Public Administration (SPPPA) ( email )

805 21st Street, NW
Media and Public Affairs Building, Room 602
Washington, DC 20052
United States

Latika Chaudhary

Naval Postgraduate School ( email )

1 University Circle
Monterey, CA 93043
United States

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