Research

Abstract: Do future schooling opportunities shape current educational decisions? In this paper, I explore a large expansion in the supply of free technical and traditional higher education institutions (HEI) in Brazil to assess whether exposure to HEI openings shifted educational trajectories and pre-college human capital accumulation for local teenagers. Using a novel dataset on policy roll-out combined with rich administrative records, I measure the effect of receiving an HEI on local students' pre-college outcomes, college attendance, and later labor market outcomes. Employing a staggered differences-in-differences approach, I find that the arrival of an HEI meaningfully increases pre-tertiary students' middle school test scores, and high school persistence and graduation rates. Following an increase in pre-college educational attainment, treated students experience higher college enrollment, wages and employment in the formal sector. Non-white students who are exposed to an HEI are 3.5% more likely to continue to high school after completing primary education, with no effects on progression for white students. Although effects on all other pre-college education and college-going outcomes are similar by race, wage gains in the formal labor market are concentrated among white individuals. Addressing potential mechanisms, I find sharp decreases in the share of 9th-graders who reported working outside the household, consistent with the important trade-off between schooling and work in low- and middle-income contexts.