Attendance, schooling quality, and the demand for education of Mexican Americans, African Americans, and non-hispanic whites

This study examines the influence of the opportunity costs of school attendance, educational quality attributes, and household socioeconomic status on the educational demand of Mexican Americans, African Americans, and non-Hispanic whites using the 1988-1990 surveys of the National Education Longitudinal Study. Implementing a utility-maximizing framework, educational demand assumes the form of schools' average daily attendance rates and student dropout decisions between the 8th and 10th grades. The basic results suggest that a school's attendance rate is sensitive to educational quality and student characteristics. Moreover, the demand for education measured by student attrition inversely relates to unexplained school attendance, and is positively affected by household socioeconomic status. Some policy recommendations based on the results are discussed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.