TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hoxby,Caroline M.
TI  - How the Changing Market Structure of U.S. Higher Education Explains College Tuition
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6323
PY  - 1997
Y2  - December 1997
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6323
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6323.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Caroline Minter Hoxby
Department of Economics
Stanford University
Landau Building, 579 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
Tel: 650-725-8719
Fax: 650-725-5702
E-Mail: choxby@stanford.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1998-08-01
AB  - This paper presents theoretical and empirical evidence demonstrating the ways in which" the changing market structure of American higher education from 1940 to the present affected" college prices and college quality.  Over this period, the market for baccalaureate education" became significantly more competitive, as it was transformed from a collection of local autarkies" to a nationally integrated market.  I demonstrate that the results of increased competition were" what industrial organization models (with product differentiation and students being both" consumers of and inputs into higher education) would predict: higher average college quality and" tuitions, greater between-college variation in tuition, greater between-college variation in student" quality, less within-college variation in student quality, higher average subsidies to students greater between-college variation in subsidies.  Changing market structure can explain real" tuition increases of approximately 50 percent for selective private colleges.  Panel data from" 1940 to 1991 on 1121 baccalaureate-granting colleges are employed, including data on students'" home residences.
ER  -