Housing costs, college enrollment, and student mobility

authored by

Johannes Göhausen, Stephan L Thomsen

Abstract

We study the effects of rental price changes on college enrollment rates. We exploit cross-district variation in the size and timing of local rental price booms in Germany during the 2010s. A one standard deviation increase in apartment rents decreased per-capita college enrollment by 1.1 percentage points on average. The effect was driven by first-year students moving long distances and was more pronounced in less densely populated locations. Housing costs - the largest component of students' expenditures and an important location factor - have contributed to the slowdown in higher education expansion and reduced the skill-binding effect of universities, exacerbating regional inequality.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Economic Policy

Type

Working paper/Discussion paper

No. of pages

66

Publication date

01.2024

Publication status

E-pub ahead of print

Electronic version(s)

https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/16726/housing-costs-college-enrollment-and-student-mobility (Access: Open)
https://hdl.handle.net/10419/282853 (Access: Open)