Quality of University and Wages

One of the primary reasons of this blog was to encourage Chinese students to pick "HIGH QUALITY" Universities to study in.

The cost of UG and PG education is very high and mistakes can be very costly. The right hand column lists Economics courses and excellent Universities. For any subject though you cannot go far wrong with that list of Universities.

But why does quality matter? The following paper sheds light on the cold fact that high quality University = higher wages (with the gap rising over time).

The conclusions are exactly as I would expect.

"University Quality and Graduate Wages in the UK"

IZA Discussion Paper No. 4043
IFTIKHAR HUSSAIN, LLM (London School of Economics), London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), University of Oxford
Email: i.hussain@lse.ac.uk
SANDRA MCNALLY, London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Email: s.mcnally1@lse.ac.uk
SHQIPONJA TELHAJ, London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), University of Sussex


We examine the links between various measures of university quality and graduate earnings in the United Kingdom. We explore the implications of using different measures of quality and combining them into an aggregate measure. Our findings suggest a positive return to university quality with an average earnings differential of about 6 percent for a one standard deviation rise in university quality. However, the relationship between university quality and wages is highly non-linear, with a much higher return at the top of the distribution. There is some indication that returns may be increasing over time.

.