Social origin and the returns to College

Title: Social origin and the returns to College

Speaker: Juan Matta (UDP)

Abstract: In this paper, we study the returns to college and its interaction with social origin. Using Chilean administrative data on education and labor market outcomes, and leveraging discontinuities in admission to different programs, we estimate the wage returns of various programs for first and second-generation HE students. We find that the returns to HE are higher for first-generation HE students, implying that HE reduces income gaps based on social origin. The gap in returns is primarily explained by disparities within college programs, although it also helps that first-generation students tend to enroll in programs with higher-returns than second-generation students with similar test scores.