Evidence suggests that acquiring human capital is related to better life outcomes, yet young peoples’ decisions to invest in or stop acquiring human capital are still poorly understood. We investigate the role of time and reference-dependent preferences in such decisions. Using a data set that is unique in its combination of real-world observations on student outcomes and experimental data on economic preferences, we find that a low degree of long-run patience is a significant predictor of dropping out of upper-secondary education. Further, for students who finish education we show that one month before termination of their program, present-biased students are less likely to have concrete continuation plans. Our findings provide fresh evidence on students’ decision-making about human capital acquisition and labor market transition with important implications for education and labor market policy.

有证据表明，获得人力资本与更好的生活成果有关，然而，年轻人对投资或停止获得人力资本的决定仍知之甚少。我们调查时间和参考依赖偏好在此类决策中的作用。通过使用其在现实世界中对学生成绩的观察结果和对经济偏好的实验数据相结合的独特数据集，我们发现长期的耐心程度低是辍学高中教育的重要预测因素。此外，对于完成学业的学生，​​我们表明在课程终止前一个月，有偏见的学生不太可能制定具体的继续学习计划。