An Empirical Investigation of Factors Which Influence College-Going Behavior

Discussion of higher education policy has been hampered in the past by an inability to forecast the effects on student behavior of proposed policies. This report describes efforts to develop a theoretical and empirical model of student behavior that will help to establish a method of forecasting enrollment patterns. In this model, actual college enrollments are the result of decisions made both by college administrators and by prospective students. The administrators determine feasible alternatives for students, who then select the "best"' college. if this best alternative is more attractive than the various possibilities other than college, enrollment follows. In this report, the student's decision problem is separated into successive stages. Formally, at each stage of the student's decision problem, he or she maximizes a utility function defined over the relevant alternatives. The results show that a utility-maximizing view of student behavior offers a useful perspective on enrollments. Results also indicated that price--both tuition and room and board charges--had a lower effect on the decisions of students from higher-income families. Also the effect of parental education on college -going behavior declines with increasing family income. After presenting the estimation results, the potential use of the model for forecasting enrollment patterns is illustrated. (Author/PG) PREPARED FOR IHE NAIIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDAIION MEIR G. KOHN CHARLES F. MANSKI DAVID S. MUNDa R-1470.NSE SEPTEMBER 1974 U S DEPARTMENT Of NEALTN EDUCATION wELEANg NATIONAL INSTITUTE Of EDUCATION TmIs DOCUMENT sAs BEEN REPRO DuCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED T ROM 'TTE PERSON OR OROAN,IATION OTT,G.Ty ATAK, IT POdYTSOT yE Jb OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSAR,L v RERRE SENT Ott oat. NATIONAL NsT.TuTf 01 EDUCATION POS. ToN OR POt KY This report was sponsored by the National Science Foundation under grant GI-38:195. Reports of The Rand Corporation do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the sponsors of Rand research. Published by The Rand Corporation