Prior survey studies have found that providing adults with accurate information can alter their perceptions or actions. Recall how Americans think teachers are underpaid until they’re told the actual salaries of teachers. This study by Albert Cheng and Paul Peterson in the Journal of Higher Education takes a similar tact. It examines whether providing adults with information about college costs and college returns (i.e., earnings) changes their future post-secondary aspirations for their child.
Analysts conduct a survey experiment using a nationally representative sample of around 4,200 U.S. adults and estimate how additional information impacts whether they prefer a four-year degree, two-year degree, or no further education for their child. “Other adults” in the survey are those without children or with children older than eighteen, and they are asked about a hypothetical child. They divide the sample into four groups of similar sizes and randomly assign them to one control and three treatment groups such that differences across groups should be attributable to differences in the amount and/or type of information received. The four groups are as follows: 1) a control group without the information intervention; 2) a group that receives information on both the net costs and returns of both two- and four-year degrees based on national averages; 3) the net costs only; and finally, 4) information on returns to a two- and four-year degree only. Unfortunately, one has to hunt down the online appendix of the journal article for the precise amounts that survey respondents are provided (which this reviewer did not do!), but the stem of the question is simple. It reads, “Thinking about your oldest child younger than eighteen years, would you want your child to go to a community college to earn a two-year degree, a university to earn a four-year degree, or neither?”
First, analysts find that about 79 percent of parents prefer their child attends a four-year university, while nearly 13 percent desire a two-year community college and 8 percent don’t wish their child to receive any post-secondary education. Other adults choose the four-year option less frequently by 11 percentage points and the two-year option more frequently by 8 percentage points. Despite these descriptive differences, the treatment effects for the parents and other adults were similar. Although parents’ aspirations moved somewhat toward the two-year option when told about the costs only, and other adults moved somewhat toward the four-year option when told about returns/earnings only, the impact of sharing information about both was not significantly different for parents or other adults compared to the treatment group.
When slicing results by household income, analysts find that 79 percent of high-income earners in the control group (i.e., those not told anything) preferred the four-year option, yet that same percentage for middle and low-income earners was 10 and 26 percentage points lower, respectively. Despite these “aspiration differences” by income, providing information on both costs and returns to respondents did not reduce this gap. In fact, it widened it at the upper levels, with middle-income respondents shifting away from the four-year option and high-income parents towards it. Differences by education showed similar patterns: Providing information on the costs of and returns to college had little impact on parents, who generally wanted their child to possess the same or similar level of education that they have.
The results might have differed had adults been provided with regional or local data on costs and earnings, as opposed to national figures. And responding for a “hypothetical” child is likely different than responding for a real one. Still, Cheng and Peterson rightly believe that it’s going to take a lot more to alter the college aspirations of adults for their children than simply providing them with a data point about costs and earnings. Their desires are likely embedded in enduring regional, social, and/or cultural contexts. Perhaps parents should take a cue from Grammy Award winner Al Yankovic (yes, that’s right) and allow your kids to dream their own dreams when they grow up.
SOURCE: Albert Cheng and Paul E. Peterson, “Experimental Estimates of Impacts of Cost-Earnings Information on Adult Aspirations for Children’s Postsecondary Education,” The Journal of Higher Education (August 2018).
