EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONAL ATTRIBUTES ON ENROLLMENT CHOICE - IMPLICATIONS FOR POSTSECONDARY VOCATIONAL-EDUCATION

This paper examines the postsecondary enrollment decision of individual high school graduates with particular focus on the effects of institutional cost and proximity. Using data from the High School and Beyond Survey of 1980 high school seniors, a multinomial legit model of enrollment probability is estimated. The results are then used to calculate own and cross-alternative elasticities of enrollment probabilities with respect to changes in institutional cost and distance. Both trade school and two-year college vocational programs are explicitly included in the choice set in order to examine how institutional attributes might best be altered in an attempt to increase enrollments in vocational postsecondary training of students who would otherwise have chosen non-enrollment [JEL I21].