ABSTRACT

The literature on the relationship between socioeconomic background (SES) and university education is inconsistent. Some studies conclude SES is important to university entry and course completion, others find trivial SES effects, net of students’ prior performance, and a third group concludes that SES effects are important and policy relevant even when considering prior performance. Parallel arguments apply to demographic, school sector, and institutional differences in the university career, that is, are they unimportant when considering student performance? Using comprehensive and accurate measures of SES and student performance, and a statistical method that utilizes all non-missing data, this study quantifies the effects of socioeconomic, demographic, and institutional factors and prior student performance. SES has only weak effects on university entry and attrition, and no effects on course completion. Student performance has strong effects on entry and has moderate effects on attrition and completion. Demographic other differences mostly disappear when controlling for student performance.

摘要

关于社会经济背景（SES）与大学教育之间关系的文献并不一致。一些研究得出结论，SES对大学入学和课程完成很重要，另一些研究发现，SES效应对学生的先前表现没有影响，而第三组得出结论，即使考虑先前的表现，SES效应也很重要且与政策相关。平行论证适用于人口，学校部门和大学职业中的机构差异，也就是说，在考虑学生表现时，它们是否不重要？本研究使用全面，准确的SES和学生成绩测量方法，以及一种利用所有非缺失数据的统计方法，对社会经济，人口统计学和制度因素以及以前学生成绩的影响进行了量化。SES对大学的录取和减员只有微弱的影响，而对课程结业没有影响。学生的表现对入学有很大影响，对减员和结业有中等影响。控制学生成绩时，其他人口统计学差异几乎消失了。