Labor Market Returns to Graduate Degrees

The project involves the use of National Science Foundation data and the Texas School Project data to study the economic value of graduate education. The specific questions include:

• What are the labor-market returns to specific graduate degrees, such as an MBA or a JD?
• How does the labor market return to graduate degrees depend on a student’s college major?
• Does the labor market return to a particular graduate degree depend on the student’s characteristics and socioeconomic background?
• How does the labor market return to undergraduate and graduate degrees depend on the quality of the undergraduate and graduate institution and program?
• How do graduate degrees affect individuals at different stages of their career?
• How does the labor market return to graduate degrees depend on the student’s industry of employment prior to graduate school?

The student will work with Altonji and his co-author Zhengren Zhu to write STATA programs to process the data, perform statistical analyses, create graphs and figures. He or she will also gather data from US News and World Report and other sources on the quality of various graduate programs.