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The Effect of Tuition Fees on Student Enrollment and Location Choice – Interregional Migration, Border Effects and Gender Differences

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  • Alecke, Björn
  • Burgard, Claudia
  • Mitze, Timo

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of tuition fees on the university enrollment and location decision of high school graduates in Germany. After a Federal Constitutional Court decision in 2005, 7 out of 16 German federal states introduced tuition fees for higher education. In the empirical analysis, we use the variation over time and across regions in this institutional change in order to isolate the causal effect of tuition fees on student enrollment and migration. Controlling for a range of regional- and university-specific effects, our results from Difference-in-Differences estimations show that there is generally no effect of tuition fees on internal enrollment rates. However, we find a redirecting effect on first-year students' migratory behavior as indicated by a signicant drop in the gross in-migration rates in fee-charging states. Further, our results point at a stronger migration response of male students, which, however, can mainly be attributed to a 'border effect'. That is, interregional migration flows of male students are redirected from fee-charging universities to those universities that are geographically close by while being located in a non-charging neighboring state. Controlling for these border effects, the relocating trend in long-distance migration of university freshmen does not show any particular gender differences.

Suggested Citation

  • Alecke, Björn & Burgard, Claudia & Mitze, Timo, 2013. "The Effect of Tuition Fees on Student Enrollment and Location Choice – Interregional Migration, Border Effects and Gender Differences," Ruhr Economic Papers 404, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:rwirep:404
    DOI: 10.4419/86788459
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    1. Dwenger, Nadja & Storck, Johanna & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2012. "Do tuition fees affect the mobility of university applicants? Evidence from a natural experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 155-167.
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    8. Burgard, Claudia & Grave, Barbara S., 2013. "Does it Pay Off to Incentivize Universities? – Performance Funding in the German Higher Education System," Ruhr Economic Papers 457, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    9. Gary S. Becker & William H. J. Hubbard & Kevin M. Murphy, 2010. "Explaining the Worldwide Boom in Higher Education of Women," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 203-241.
    10. Mchugh, Richard & Morgan, James N., 1984. "The determinants of interstate student migration: a place-to-place analysis," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 269-278, August.
    11. Pekkarinen, Tuomas, 2012. "Gender Differences in Education," IZA Discussion Papers 6390, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
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    Cited by:

    1. Michel Beine & Marco Delogu & Lionel Ragot, 2017. "Understanding the Impact of Tuition Fees in Foreign Education: the Case of the UK," Working Papers hal-04141620, HAL.
    2. Michel Beine & Marco Delogu & Lionel Ragot, 2020. "The role of fees in foreign education: evidence from Italy [Determinants of international student migration]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 571-600.
    3. Yash Daultani & Ashish Dwivedi & Saurabh Pratap, 2021. "Benchmarking higher education institutes using data envelopment analysis: capturing perceptions of prospective engineering students," OPSEARCH, Springer;Operational Research Society of India, vol. 58(4), pages 773-789, December.
    4. Beine, Michel & Peri, Giovanni & Raux, Morgan, 2023. "International college students’ impact on the US skilled labor supply," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    5. Michel Beine & Marco Delogu & Lionel Ragot, 2017. "The Role of Fees in Foreign Education: Evidence From Italy and the United Kingdom," Working Papers 2017-04, CEPII research center.
    6. Léonard Moulin & David Flacher & Hugo Harari-Kermadec, 2016. "Tuition fees and social segregation: lessons from a natural experiment at the University of Paris 9-Dauphine," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(40), pages 3861-3876, August.
    7. Ilya Prakhov & Maria Bocharova, 2016. "Socio-Economic Predictors of Student Mobility," HSE Working papers WP BRP 34/EDU/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    8. Neeraj Kaushal & Mauro Lanati, 2019. "International Student Mobility: Growth and Dispersion," NBER Working Papers 25921, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Ralf Minor, 2023. "How tuition fees affected student enrollment at higher education institutions: the aftermath of a German quasi-experiment," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 57(1), pages 1-19, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    tuition fees; gender differences; higher education; student migration; policy evaluation; Difference-in-Differences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D04 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation; Evaluation
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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