Determinants of Postsecondary Education Attendance: Some Implications of Alternative Specifications of Enrollment

This paper proposes four defensible alternative definitions of “postsecondary education attendance,” then uses data for 1980 high school seniors to examine influences on attendance under each of the definitions. The results suggest that these influences vary somewhat, depending upon the enrollment definition one chooses. For example, the findings suggest that studies focusing solely upon a traditional definition of enrollment (e.g., entry into a two- or four-year institution immediately after high school graduation) may overstate the limiting effects of socioeconomic factors on overall enrollment, and may also understate the positive effects of being female. Some policy studies make recommendations on the basis of analysis using traditional enrollment definitions, even though such definitions are much more restricted than those of the major financial aid programs (e.g., the Federal Pell Grant program). The findings of the present study suggest that such studies may misspecify policy impacts. The implications of these results are discussed.