Tuition Fees for Higher Education and Intergenerational Mobility in China

This paper studies the impact of an increase in higher education tuition on intergenerational mobility in China. We develop a theoretical model for the parental decision about the investment on education of children to illustrate the impact from the perspective of borrowing constraint. We consider the Chinese college tuition and subsidy reform around 1986 as a quasi-natural experiment for identifying the policy effect of the reform on intergenerational educational mobility by using the data from the census of 2000 and the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). We find that an increase in the education burden induced by the reform of college tuition has reduced intergenerational educational mobility, and it is more noticeable in regions with a relatively higher increment in the tuition fee. Our results are robust with consideration of the co-residence bias, government investment in elementary education, and the higher education expansion.

本文研究了中国高等教育学费上涨对代际流动性的影响。我们构建了一个关于父母对子女教育投资决策的理论模型，从借贷约束的角度阐释这种影响。我们将1986年左右中国的大学学费和补贴改革视为一次准自然实验，利用2000年人口普查数据和中国家庭追踪调查（CFPS）的数据来确定该改革对代际教育流动性的政策效应。我们发现，大学学费改革导致的教育负担加重降低了代际教育流动性，并且在学费涨幅相对较高的地区更为明显。考虑到同住偏差、政府对基础教育的投入以及高等教育扩张等因素后，我们的结果依然稳健。