With the worldwide boom in higher education and in the demand by business and governments for college graduates, the Korean and Japanese emphasis on hard work in secondary school has spread to other nations. For example, since enrollments in Chinese universities have increased manifold since 1995, the competition to get into the top schools, such as Beijing University, is fierce, even though the number of Chinese universities has also expanded rapidly. As a result, many Chinese parents are spending increasing amounts on the secondary education of their children, including private schooling and extra tutoring.
Although secondary school students work very hard in Japan, Korea, and many other countries, they tend to relax and take it much easier at universities. They often need a few years to recover their energies. So even at the best universities there, homework is not that extensive and much time is left for play.
The American education system had traditionally followed an approach that is the opposite of the Japan-Korean approach to education. High schools, even the better ones, did not give much homework, and relatively little money was spent on private tutoring. Of course, much learning occurred in the better high schools, but at a leisurely pace, with considerable time for athletics, theatre, school newspapers, and other school activities, and also for parties, watching television programs, listening to music, and other out of school pursuits. But once at a good university students had to buckle down to hard work, or at least much harder work than in high school.
This American approach to education is radically changing at the better public and private high schools because during the past couple of decades it has become much more difficult to get into the top colleges and universities. Teachers are giving greater amounts of homework, and families are also spending a lot more on private tutoring. The tutoring is partly in math and other subjects, and partly in direct preparation for the SAT exams that in good measure determine whether students get accepted into the better colleges and universities.
Presumably, parents, high school teachers, and students perceive that the students gain enough from attending the top colleges to justify the additional time, money, and energy put into trying to gain acceptance to these schools. It has long been known that graduates from top colleges and universities get better jobs and earn more than do graduates from lesser schools. What has been much less certain is whether these graduates do better because they are abler, and hence would have done better even if they had attended lower level schools. Recent econometric studies have more successfully separated out the performance of colleges from the selection of students. These studies examine the earnings of students who were rejected from and accepted into the top American schools when they have comparable SAT scores, high school grades, and other characteristics.
The studies find that students who attend harder to get into schools earn considerably more over their lifetimes than comparable students who attend schools that spend less per student and where average SAT scores are lower (a good summary is by Caroline Hoxby in “College Choices Have Consequences”, SIEPR Policy Brief, December, 2012). Most of the difference in earnings is apparently due not to the amount that schools spend per student, but to the quality of the other students attending the same schools.
Earnings of college graduates depend on how much their schools spent on their education, the various abilities and skills of the graduates, and the characteristics of the other students at the schools they attended. Hoxby shows that spending per student has grown much more rapidly since the 1960s at the top colleges than at lesser colleges, while at the same time tuition per student at the top schools has grown much more slowly than spending per student. It is also documented that earnings of college students per dollar spent on their education has risen substantially since 1980. As a result, the economic gains to graduates from the top schools have risen greatly during the past 40 years.
These three facts, that returns to college education have risen rapidly during the past several decades, that spending per student at the top colleges has also increased rapidly, and that the cost of attending these schools has grown much more slowly, can readily explain why students at the better high schools face a much more rigorous workload than in the past. They also explain why their parents spend a lot more on private tutoring. The gains from having better grades, higher SAT scores, and more extracurricular activities have risen considerably because that helps students get into the top schools.
These results do not answer the basic question of whether the extra effort by high school students is socially productive, or whether it is partly a social waste (an “arms race”) because efforts by different students partly just offset each other without producing socially valuable knowledge. The evidence I have discussed has a mixed message about this. On the one hand, the fact that the better colleges and universities ration entry rather than by raising tuition to the more marginal applicants suggests that these students fight it out for the limited and rationed slots at the top schools by becoming better “armed” with higher SAT scores and more extracurricular activities.
On the other hand, the fact that the quality of other students at the same university positively affects the subsequent earnings of all the graduates from that university suggests that too little is spent on higher scores and better preparation. The reason is that higher scores by any student improve the subsequent performance of other students at the same college. A further issue not fully resolved is how much of the benefits from attending universities like Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Tokyo, Seoul National, and Beijing come from the reputation of these schools rather than from the valuable knowledge and skills (including networks) possessed by graduates from these schools.
Although the net result on the “arms race” aspect of the improved student preparation for college admission is not clear from the available evidence, the evidence cited explains why students in the better American high schools are working so much harder than they did several decades ago. I suspect that the greater earnings and other gains from attending top universities also applies, perhaps even more strongly, to Japan, Korea, and the other countries where the better high schools require so much work.
You state: "As a result, the economic gains to graduates from the top schools have risen greatly during the past 40 years." How solid is the evidence for this? Are we possibly not just looking at the effects of almost all students attending prestigious colleges being super smart, ambitious, hard-working and with the right family connections?
I might not be aware of the very latest research on this, but I am looking at a paper by Stacey Berg Dale and Alan B. Kreuger , "Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College: An application of Selection on Observables and Unobservables" published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Nov. 2002. The bottom line was that when you carefully compare students who truly are the same quality students, the return to going to the more prestigious college is very small or even none. In other words, a student who actually managed to get into a more prestigious college but then deliberately chose a less prestigious one ended up with very similar earnings to the "same" student who chose a prestigious one.
Starting salaries for college graduates today seem to reveal a stronger pattern of occupational differences than the precise ranking of the college. Anyone going into technical fields in demand, such as oil engineering or mining, easily outlearns most liberal arts Ivy leaguers.
Posted by: Gertrud Fremling | 02/01/2013 at 07:13 AM
I'm sure if you simply look at the cost of the investment and assume the investment was necessary to the outcome, this raw return on investment calculation will show a higher ROI for today's elite graduate than for a similar elite graduate 40 years ago. I took this to be Dr. Becker's assertion.
I believe Gertrud above is suggesting that the opportunity cost to a highly gifted individual in choosing an elite school may just about equal this raw return, negating at least one of the reasons for enrolling in the first place. Anecdotally, I observe that certain top-flight individuals are going to do well no matter what impediment is put in front of them, including a lack of pedigree, so I would suspect she is right at least at the top end. I would still expect however that for the person who graduated from Harvard with the lowest GPA in the class, whether due to lack of IQ or lack of energy toward the curriculum, the return is quite significant, i.e., a marginally able individual who can wave a Harvard diploma will likely be able to exploit that one superlative accomplishment and go much further in a career than without it - also a phenomenon I observe regularly.
Posted by: Terry Bennett | 02/01/2013 at 01:57 PM
"exploit that one superlative accomplishment"
My more idealistic side likes to think that our society and its institutions have a plan to identify and promote worthy individuals at every step and at every level. I hope there are more judges of worth along the way besides the admissions officers at Ivy League colleges.
Posted by: Rod TheBod | 02/02/2013 at 08:24 AM
What accounts for 125 Harvard students being censured for cheating on a "Governments" class? I mean, who has to cheat on something which should be hard-wired into the fabric of their existence?
Posted by: Jdwalton | 02/03/2013 at 07:30 AM
Frankly, I do not see from my personal experience any basis for so-called elite colleges having the reputation for excellence that they do. I have attended two of these schools as well as large state universities, a private Catholic liberal arts school, and a fundamentalist school. The worst was the fundamentalist school, but it did have some good teaching and by far and away the best cultural offerings such as opera, symphonies, Shakespearean plays, weekly Vesper programs replete with poetry and short dramas as well as a first rate art collection.
But next in order of poor quality teaching are the two elite private universities. While there were a few good classes as there were in the fundamentalist school, most of the teaching was non-existent or poor. In one graduate seminar, the professor said that he should not say anything or even answer a question. All he did was preside over the students' discussions. When professors did teach the classes, they tended to take up topics as they seemed to randomly pop into their heads as they spoke in hurried, elliptical phrases. In courses where I was already familiar with the subject matter, I thought to myself at the time that if I did not already know what they were referring to, I would be lost. In classes where I was not familiar with the subject matter, I was lost. I had to either stop attending ( I was sitting in a couple of classes attempting to gain an introduction to the subjects) or I had to go find books and articles that explained the subject matter in a clear manner. I had fairly extensive contact with undergraduates at one of these schools since I lived in a block off-campus that was primarily student rentals. They asked me for help because they did not understand what was being presented in their introductory classes.
The best schools were the Catholic liberal arts college where I took additional classes and two large state schools where I was enrolled in graduate programs. The departments that I studied in at the state schools were highly ranked. The professors actually taught the classes in a reasonably-paced, clear manner. I understood and mastered the material much better at these schools. I also enjoyed studying at these schools more since the stress was much less. I do not like stress and do not do well under stress. I heard several other students and faculty at the other elite university that I attended who had contact with one of the state universities that I attended to notice the same points of contrast between the two schools--viz., clarity and reduced stress. I also found that I could play with ideas more freely in class discussions and in papers at the state schools than at the elite schools.
As for the interaction with other students, there is no question that the elite schools provided better classmates and other students to socialize with and to discuss issues raised in class. The students at the elite schools taken as a whole were more personable, more enthusiastic, more intelligent, more articulate, and more enjoyable to be with.
Posted by: Christopher Graves | 02/03/2013 at 08:03 AM
i really don't see why everyone is so obsessed with going to these elite places that will cost a lot of money! i'm a national diploma student in the UK who is planning to pass the course so i could go to an art and technology college in somerset to do a degree. Ok, so it's no cambridge or yale, but i'd rather go to a college that may not be in the same league as the big colleges but i'd rather go to a smaller college and get more out of it than a big university and get nothing!
Posted by: Shelley Greenaway | 05/19/2013 at 12:03 PM