TY  - JOUR
AU  - Murnane,Richard J.
AU  - Willett,John B.
AU  - Tyler,John H.
TI  - Who Benefits from Obtaining a GED?  Evidence from High School and Beyond
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7172
PY  - 1999
Y2  - June 1999
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7172
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7172.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Richard Murnane
Graduate School of Education
Harvard University
6 Appian Way - Gutman 469
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/496-4820
Fax: 617/496-3095
E-Mail: richard_murnane@harvard.edu

John H. Tyler
Box 1938
340 Brook Street
Brown University
Providence, RI  02912
Tel: 401/863-1036
Fax: 401/863-1276
E-Mail: john_tyler@brown.edu
AB  - This paper examines the value of the GED credential and the conventional high school diploma in explaining the earnings of 27-year-old males in the early 1990s.  The data base is the High School & Beyond sophomore cohort. We replicate the basic findings of prior studies that implicitly assume the labor market value of the GED credential does not depend on the skills with which dropouts left school. We show that these average effects mask a more complicated pattern. Obtaining a GED is associated with higher earnings at age 27 for those male dropouts who had very weak cognitive skills as tenth graders, but not for those who had stronger cognitive skills as tenth graders.
ER  -