Essays in Education Economics

This dissertation encompasses three self-contained chapters that investigate issues in Education Economics, such as how crisis conditions affect access to selective tertiary education institutions and the formation of adolescents’ expectations and aspirations. The common thread running through these essays is the presentation of up-to-date empirical evidence that can inform educational interventions that aim to ensure equal opportunities for all, promote academic success and enhance social mobility.

In the first chapter, I explore stratification in selective university departments in Greece in the wake of the debt crisis of 2008. I draw on an individual-level dataset on student enrolment in every undergraduate university programme in Greece and admission thresholds for the period 2004-2016. I estimate the effect of parental background on the probability of a student’s admission to a selective university department between 2004-2016 and compare selection to these programmes before, during and after the recession.

In the second chapter, I investigate the determinants of youth’s earnings expectations and the extent to which they are grounded to labour market reality in the UK. I use novel data on earnings expectations of a youth population around the age of 17 in the UK from the Millennium Cohort Study and compare them to realised earnings observed in the Labour Force Survey. Using an instrumental variable strategy, I examine whether young people believe their university participation will substantially affect their future earnings. I then conduct a heterogeneity analysis of earnings expectations by gender, ethnicity, maternal socio-economic characteristics, past school performance and cognitive skills.

In the third chapter, I study educational expectations and career, family formation and material aspirations of youth in the UK. I first explore gender and ethnicity variations in the expectations and aspirations of young people using data from the Millennium Cohort Study. Given the complex relationships that drive expectations and aspirations, I investigate how factors such as youth and parental gender attitudes, parental birthplace, maternal employment and socio- economic status are differentially associated with aspirations by gender and ethnic group.