Influence of university prestige on graduate wage and job satisfaction: the case of South Korea

ABSTRACT

Obtaining a tertiary degree no longer guarantees entry to the best occupational positions in today’s labour market. Success is no longer about ‘more’ education, but about ‘better’ education for university graduates. This study aims to understand whether university prestige in Korea accounts for occupational outcomes in both monetary and non-monetary aspects, such as salaries and job satisfaction. The study particularly focuses on the way different levels of university prestige are affected by gender. The fourth wave data from the Korean Education and Employment Panel were used, providing information from the results of a panel survey of university graduates in terms of their social and academic background and job employment status. Results show that university prestige continues to matters in occupational outcomes in particular, for wage, but it is not significant for job satisfaction. The effect is more significant among male graduates than among female graduates.     

Higher education in Turkey: Subsidizing the rich or the poor?

We investigate how the benefits of publicly financed higher education in Turkey are distributed among students with different socioeconomic backgrounds. We use a dataset from a nationally representative sample of university entrance exam takers together with data on government subsidies to public universities. We compare the characteristics of students who succeed in the exam to those who do not and those who enter public universities to those who go to private ones. Our econometric analyses based on a three-stage selection model reveal that students from wealthier and more educated families are more likely to be successful at university entrance. Unlike the findings in other countries, students who enroll in private universities come from higher income and more educated families. Among those who enter public universities, students from higher income and better educated families are more likely to go to universities that receive larger subsidies from the government.     

Equity in higher education and graduate labour market outcomes in Australia

The rate of higher education participation in Australia has increased over the past decade for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. This study contributes to the knowledge on the outcomes of disadvantaged individuals who complete higher education by looking at the labour market outcomes of university graduates from equity groups. The number of Indigenous graduates and graduates with disabilities was found to be very low, suggesting that more needs to be done to improve higher education completion for these two groups. The labour market outcomes for other equity groups are mixed, with those from low socio-economic status backgrounds and regional and remote Australia performing well in the labour market, while graduates from non-English-speaking backgrounds and female graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields experience substantial disadvantage in the labour market. The findings suggest that selection processes prior to the graduates’ entry into the labour market are important.     

Equity in New Zealand university graduate outcomes: Māori and Pacific graduates

Higher education confers significant private and social benefits. Māori and Pacific peoples are under-represented within New Zealand universities and have poorer labour market outcomes (e.g., lower wages, under-represented in skilled professions). A New Zealand tertiary education priority is to boost Māori and Pacific success in an effort to improve outcomes for these graduates, their communities and society in general. Using information collected in the Graduate Longitudinal Study New Zealand, we compared Māori and Pacific university graduate outcomes with outcomes of other New Zealand graduates. Data were collected when the participants were in their final year of study (n?=?8719) and two years post-graduation (n?=?6104). Employment outcomes were comparable between Māori, Pacific and other New Zealand graduates at two years post-graduation; however, Māori and Pacific graduates had significantly higher student debt burden and financial strain over time. They were significantly more likely to help others (e.g., family) across a range of situations (e.g., lending money), and reported higher levels of volunteerism compared to their counterparts. Boosting higher education success for Māori and Pacific students has the potential to reduce ethnic inequalities in New Zealand labour market outcomes and may result in significant private benefits for these graduates and social benefits as a result of their contribution to society.     

Aspiration for global cultural capital in the stratified realm of global higher education: why do Korean students go to US graduate schools?

This study aims to understand Korean students’ motivations for studying in US graduate schools. For this purpose, I conducted in‐depth interviews with 50 Korean graduate students who were enrolled in a research‐centered US university at the time of the interview. In these interviews, I sought to understand how their motivations are connected not only with their family, school, and occupational backgrounds, but also with the stratification of global higher education. Theoretically, this paper attempts to combine the concept of global positional competition with Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital in the field of global education. By critically examining a push–pull model of transnational higher education choice‐making, this study situates Korean students’ aspirations in the contexts of global power and the hierarchy of knowledge‐degree production and consumption. After analyzing the students’ qualitative interviews, I classify their motivations for earning US degrees within four categories: enhancing their class positions and enlarging their job opportunities; pursuing learning in the global center of learning; escaping the undemocratic system and culture in Korean universities; and fulfilling desires to become cosmopolitan elites armed with English communication skills and connections within the global professional network. Based on this analysis, I argue that Korean students pursue advanced degrees in the United States in order to succeed in the global positional competition within Korea as well as in the global job marketplace. As they pursue advanced US degrees, Korean students internalize US hegemony as it reproduces the global hierarchy of higher education, but at the same time Korean students see US higher education as a means of liberation that resolves some of the inner contradictions of Korean higher education, including gender discrimination, a degree caste system, and an authoritarian learning culture. Therefore, this study links Korean students’ aspiration for global cultural capital to complex and irregular structures and relations of class, gender, nationality, and higher education that extend across local, national, and global dimensions simultaneously.     

大力拓展独立创业者成长的教育空间

大学生独立创业能力不足 ,关键在于大学生学习方式、个性发展的多样性与大学教育教学模式的同一性之间存在着矛盾。高等学校要真正培养具有独立创业能力的大学生 ,必须进一步科学认识创造性人才的特征及其要求 ,深化教学改革 ,全方位拓展独立创业者成长的教育空间。     

Family background, financial constraints and higher education attendance in China

Using data from the 2004 China College Student Survey, conducted by the author, this paper finds that long-term factors such as scholastic ability and parental education are significantly correlated with higher education attendance. By contrast, short-term financial constraints are also significantly associated with higher education access, but to a lesser degree. Furthermore, in recent years China's higher education expansion has provided broader access to students from lower income families. However, the tuition fees and “net prices” of elite universities are lower than those of medium quality universities, while the tuition fees and “net prices” of medium quality universities are lower than those of relatively low quality universities and colleges. This has led to a reverse relationship between family income and attendance costs, such that lower income families now shoulder a much higher burden for their childrens’ university education than higher income families.     

Tactics or strategies? Exploring everyday conditions to facilitate implementation of an Indigenous graduate attributes project

In 2017 Universities Australia (UA), the peak body representing Australian universities released its Indigenous Strategy 2017–2020. The document unites universities together in common goals for Indigenous achievement, filling a notable gap in the Australian higher education landscape. The Strategy outlines a comprehensive plan for enhanced Indigenous outcomes in critical areas of higher education including student access and success, graduate research, and community engagement. This paper focuses on the implementation of Indigenous curriculum for all Australian university graduates which is a key aspect of the Strategy. The changing Indigenous higher education landscape invites the nuanced analysis that critical examination of universities, as organisations, might elicit. Drawing on de Certeau’s notion of tactics and strategies, the paper examines the policy and cultural climate of an Australian university which supports an Indigenous Graduate Attribute curriculum project.     

Occupational Outcomes for Bachelor of Science Graduates in Australia and Implications for Undergraduate Science Curricula

Recent national reports have highlighted the contribution that the sciences make to the Australian economy. Many developed economies report perceived shortages of STEM qualified workers, and at the same time, many science graduates have difficulty in finding work, especially work in their discipline. Rational education design dictates that science curricula at all levels should be based on a realistic representation of the actual practice of science graduates. So where do Australian science graduates go postgraduation? Using the Australian national census data set, we present a focussed investigation into the occupational status of Australian science bachelor graduates, how this status varies with graduate age and gender, how this status varies between science degree specialisms and how this status compares to a range of other disciplines. We consider the implications of these findings for undergraduate science degree curriculum design. We find that Australian science bachelor graduates work in a wide range of occupations, and even immediately postgraduation, only a minority of science bachelor graduates are working in traditional science occupations. Occupational outcomes vary significantly between science degree specialisms. For a contemporary undergraduate science curriculum to reflect the occupational outcomes of science bachelor graduates, there is a balance required to ensure adequate technical preparation for those students who pursue a career in their discipline as science professionals and to also address the broader knowledge, skills and attitudes that will equip the majority of graduates from Australian science programs for successful employment, further education and active participation in their communities, using their science knowledge.     

College Major and the Gender Earnings Gap: A Multi-country Examination of Postgraduate Labour Market Outcomes

This paper explores the effects of degree choice on the distribution of occupational benefits in terms of income, and their contribution to the gender earnings gap, among young European higher education graduates. The results reveal that the field of study, which is the result of a personal choice, appears to influence the distribution of work-related benefits among graduates even after controlling for unobservable heterogeneity and observable individual/job specific characteristics. Analysis of the gender earnings gap shows that the earning disparities among female/male graduates in Education, Humanities and Mathematics are smaller.     

我国高等教育社会分层功能的再审视——基于对某省两所高校毕业生的调查

高等教育大众化背景下的大学生就业难、高考弃考等现象,再次引发人们对高等教育社会分层功能的审视。在对福建省2所高校进行调查分析的基础上,对不同类型高校、科类毕业生的社会分层情况、父子的职业地位相关性,以及父子阶层的地位变化等对比研究发现:高等教育分流影响毕业生的社会分层;接受高等教育的多数毕业生实现了社会阶层的向上流动;同时高等教育仍是优势阶层地位再生产的重要工具。由这一研究结果审视大众化背景下的高等教育社会分层功能,可以得出高等教育的矛盾性功能依然存在、高校毕业生就业难强化了高等教育的社会分层功能的结论。真正很好地协调社会分层与高等教育的关系,仍任重而道远。     

家庭背景对高等教育数量和质量获得的影响——社会分层的视角

本文利用2002年北京师范大学"大学毕业生就业意向与就业行为"课题组的调查数据,在中国高等教育逐渐进入大众化阶段的背景下,考察父母亲的教育背景对子女在高等教育阶段教育数量和质量获得方面的影响。实证结果发现,整体而言,父母亲的教育背景对于子女接受高等教育的层次与质量仍然有显著的促进作用,社会分层导致的教育差异依然存在于实施严格选拔的高等教育系统中。     

International graduates host country employment intentions and outcomes: Evidence from two Australian universities

ABSTRACT

A key attractor for many international students when choosing to study abroad is the prospect of gaining employment in the host country after graduating. From a university’s perspective this becomes an important attraction issue for both maintaining and increasing the number of international students as well as improving graduate employability. A survey was utilised to explore employment intentions and outcomes of international graduate alumni from two Australian universities (n = 511 and n = 648). A comparative analysis between the universities has been undertaken in relation to this and rates of unemployment amongst graduates. The study has coined the term Two-step migration intender for international students/graduates and contributes to a gap in the research in relation to international graduate mobility, career intentions and employment outcomes. The findings have strategic implications for the promotion of Australian higher education to overseas markets and can also inform higher education policy and practice in terms of strategies for promoting international graduate employability.     

The financial burden of attending university in Georgia: Implications for rural students

By evaluating the impact of policies to financially support university students in Georgia, this article demonstrates the systematic spatial disparities that exist in a context of formally equal competition. The author uses a mixed-methods design, combining quantitative evidence on the entire population of Georgian university applicants in 2005–2009 with data obtained through in-depth interviews with rural families and with policy-makers, to understand the costs associated with attending universities, based on their prestige and location, as well as inequalities stemming from existing policies on the allocation of public funding. She suggests that the distribution of public funding is apparently fair, as urban and rural students incur the same average out-of-pocket tuition costs. Behind the façade of the fair outcome, however, lie serious spatial inequalities based on the complex interplay between the residential origin of higher education applicants, tuition costs, public funding allocations, university locations, and prestige. The analysis shows that urban applicants apply, and gain admission, to more prestigious universities which charge higher tuition than the universities where rural applicants enrol; urban students also manage to obtain higher proportions of the public tuition grant than their rural peers. Thus, rural and urban students purchase higher education of different quality for the same out-of-pocket costs, with urban students being more privileged and rural students relatively less so. Exacerbating this injustice is the fact that rural residents in Georgia earn half of the average urban income.     

Impacts of social economic status on higher education opportunity and graduate employment in China

Based on a nation-wide survey of higher education graduates, this paper analyzes the impact of family background, using paternal occupation and education as indicators, on their scores in the National College Entrance Examination, the level and type of higher education institutions they attend, their employment after graduation, and the income they receive from their first job. It has been found that there are wide disparities among students with different family backgrounds in both access to higher education and their potential employment in China nowadays. This paper also studies how those influences happen. __________ Translated from Peking University Education Review, 2005 July (3)     

Does Graduating from a Private University Make a Difference? Evidence from Italy

The main aim of this article is to explore similarities and differences in the institutional features of private and state universities in the Italian higher education system and to assess whether graduating from a private university conveys advantages in the labour market. In the first part we use administrative data to describe the main institutional features of the two types of university, looking at organisational aspects, enrolments and graduates, financial resources, tuition fees, and teachers' characteristics. In the second part we develop a theoretical framework looking at sociological and economic theories of education and labour market, from which we derive some hypotheses on the expected results. In the last part, we apply a propensity score matching analysis on data from the Italian University Graduates Survey conducted in 2007 by the Italian National Institute of Statistics, which provides information on more than 40,000 graduates who obtained their degree in 2004. The main results indicate that graduates from private universities are younger, have a higher socio-economic background and a slightly better previous school career than those from state universities. Contrary to a widespread belief, once accounted for self-selection into the type of university using a wide range of variables, graduating from a private university has neither a significant nor a substantial effect on employment probability, hourly wage and occupational level three years after graduation.     

择业观念对大学毕业生就业的影响——基于2007届大学毕业生的实证研究

择业观念是影响大学毕业生就业的一个重要因素。实证研究结果表明:大学毕业生择业时,其对单位性质和职业类型的要求与就业机会获得和地位获得后的月收入水平呈负相关;求职主动性与就业机会呈正相关;工资水平期望与地位获得后的月收入呈正相关;职业苦乐意识与职业满意度呈负相关。因此,高等学校必须大力加强就业形势教育,引导大学毕业生树立正确的择业竞争观、职业地位观、职业苦乐观,端正择业态度,转变择业观念,从而有利于其职业地位的获得。     

Intended college enrollment and educational inequality: Do students lack information?

Despite increasing access to university education, students from disadvantaged or non-academic family backgrounds are still underrepresented in universities. In this regard, the economics literature has focused on the role of financial constraints as a cause of these observed differences in educational choices. Our knowledge of potential effects of other constraints regarding university education is more limited. We investigate the causal relationship between information and educational expectations using data from a German randomized controlled trial in which students in high schools were given information on the benefits of as well as on different funding possibilities for university education. We find that the provision of information increases intended college enrollment for students from a non-academic family background, both two to three months and one year after the intervention. In contrast, it leads students from academic backgrounds to lower their enrollment intentions in the short run. However, this effect does not persist. Our results suggest that educational inequality can be reduced by providing students from non-academic families with relevant information.     

UNIVERSITIES AFTER 1945: GLOBAL POWER OR UNENDING CRISIS?

In addition to its traditional task of generating and transmitting knowledge in all fields, the university has been called upon to shoulder the tasks, of economic and social development. Although these tasks have only recently been formally recognized and clearly stated, they have always been implicit. That this is so is proved by the fact that as European societies democratized and industrialized themselves in the nineteenth century, increasing numbers and varieties of non‐traditional higher education institutions came into being, directed at the aims of the self‐promotion of students from non‐élite backgrounds. Increasingly, all aspects of science and society are intertwined with an increasingly varied assortment of higher education institutions and programmes. A major question faced by all planners of higher education, particularly of under‐graduate curricula, is that of specialized training versus general education. Given the rapid pace of technological change, the latter seems better as a means of preparing graduates for a lifetime of coping with change. Still the traditional role of universities of creating and advancing knowledge has not been neglected, for universities or at least their graduates who are employed in specialized academies or research centres are still the intellectual and scientific pace‐setters of the world.     

Informational capital and the transition to university: First‐in‐family students' experiences in Austrian higher education

The agenda for widening participation in higher education has led to increasing numbers of students with a broader range of education and family backgrounds. However, transitioning to the university landscape remains a highly complex negotiation process, especially for first‐in‐family students, who cannot draw on previous experience from higher education in their families. Gaining access to informational capital—a combination of cultural and social capital—plays a crucial role in managing education transitions. We draw on rich empirical data obtained from 26 autobiographical narrative interviews with first‐in‐family university students in Austria to investigate how transitions to university are affected by informational capital. We also explore how access to informational capital was influenced by (1) institutional practices, such as initiatives to support students, especially first‐year students; and (2) cultural fit—the extent to which a student's cultural capital corresponded with the dominant cultural capital in the field of their chosen discipline or higher education establishment. Our findings show that gaining access to informational capital was strongly affected by the institutional practices at universities within the different disciplines, thus highlighting the importance of higher education institutions in supporting their students during transition processes. We conclude with policy implications for how higher education institutions can assist first‐in‐family students to succeed at university.