Money or fun? Why students want to pursue further education

Published on 8 August 2016

We study students’ motives for educational attainment in a unique survey of 885 secondary school students in the UK. As expected, students who perceive the monetary returns to education to be higher are more likely to intend to continue in full-time education. However, the main driver is the perceived consumption value, which alone explains around half of the variation of the intention to pursue higher education. Moreover, the perceived consumption value can account for a substantial part of both the socio-economic gap and the gender gap in intentions to continue in full-time education.

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We study students’ motives for educational attainment in a unique survey of 885 secondary school students in the UK. As expected, students who perceive the monetary returns to education to be higher are more likely to intend to continue in full-time education. However, the main driver is the perceived consumption value, which alone explains around half of the variation of the intention to pursue higher education. Moreover, the perceived consumption value can account for a substantial part of both the socio-economic gap and the gender gap in intentions to continue in full-time education.

    Authors

    Jonathan Shaw
    Jonathan Shaw

    Research Fellow Financial Conduct Authority

    Jonathan is a Research Fellow at the IFS and a Technical Specialist in the Economics Department at the Financial Conduct Authority.

    Person graphic

    Chris Belfield

    Teodora Boneva
    Teodora Boneva

    Research Associate University of Bonn

    Teodora is a Research Associate and a Professor of Applied Microeconomics at the Department of Economics at the University of Bonn.

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    Christopher Rauh

    Working Paper details

    DOI
    10.1920/wp.ifs.2016.1613
    Publisher
    IFS

    Suggested citation

    Belfield, C et al. (2016). Money or fun? Why students want to pursue further education. London: IFS. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/money-or-fun-why-students-want-pursue-further-education (accessed: 15 February 2025).

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