Cultural and human capital, information and higher education choices

Abstract

This study examines ways in which economic and sociological explanations of higher education (HE) choices may intersect through student’s use of information. We find substantial positive associations between intention to go to university in England and each of: (i) parents’ education; (ii) cultural capital; and (iii) expectations of the size of the graduate premium. We also find an association between beliefs about the size of the graduate premium and cultural capital. These results support an integrated model of participation in HE in which social and economic factors are treated as complementary rather than competing explanations. The results run counter to previous research which has found that associations between participation in HE and socio-economic status (SES) largely disappear once students’ attainment is taken into account. One policy implication of this research is that some indicators of SES (notably household income, eligibility for free school meals or parental occupation) are sub-optimal for interventions to widen participation in HE.

Keywords:

• economics
• sociology

Acknowledgements

The research reported in this paper was funded by the Nuffield Foundation as part of a project titled ‘Labour market expectations, relative performance and subject choice’. The Nuffield Foundation is an endowed charitable trust that aims to improve social well-being in the widest sense. It funds research and innovation in education and social policy and also works to build capacity in education, science and social science research. The Nuffield Foundation has funded this project, but the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Foundation. More information is available at www.nuffieldfoundation.org. We are grateful for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper received from two anonymous referees, John Anchor, Jon Lauglo, Jean Mangan, David Raffe, Geoff Whitty and Anna Zimdars. We are also grateful to Rachel Hewitt and Lily Ilic for their help in collected and coding the data.

Notes

1. This follows typical practice in the literature (e.g. Oreopoulos and Dunn 2009; Jensen 2010; Walker and Zhu 2011) whilst recognizing that, in principle, an individual may be more interest in non-pecuniary benefits from education. We control for monetary/non-monetary motivation as declared by students.

2. Data provided from the UK government: ‘Participation in education, training and employment by 16- to 18-year-olds in England, end 2011’. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/participation-in-education-training-and-employment-by-16-to-18-year-olds-in-england-end-2011.

3. In 2011/2012, the Higher Education Initial Participation Rate for England was 47%. This is the government’s estimate of the probability that a 17 year-old will participate in HE by the time they are 30 (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills 2012).

4. Although we recognize that evidence from other contexts (e.g. Katsillis and Rubinson 1990) does not support this contention.

5. We found no significant differences for more fine-grained distinctions between ethnic groups.

6. Which is slightly more than 1% of the total government support for HE provided through the Higher Education Funding Council for England.