Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/35596 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 3827
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
In this paper we review recent trends in tuition at public universities and estimate impacts on enrollment. We use data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System on all public four-year colleges and universities from 1991 to 2007 and illustrate that tuition increased dramatically beginning in the early part of this decade, increasing at rates unprecedented in the past half century. We examine impacts of these tuition increases on total enrollment and credit hours, and estimate differences by type of institution. We estimate that the average tuition and fee elasticity of total headcount is -0.1072. So, at the mean a $100 increase in tuition and fees (in 2006 dollars) would lead to a decline in enrollment of a little more than 0.25 percent, with larger effects at Research I universities. We find no evidence that especially large increases from one year to the next have a disproportionately large negative effect on enrollment.
Subjects: 
Higher education
tuition
enrollment
JEL: 
I2
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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