The economics of higher education participation

Given the recent rapid growth and persistent social inequalities in higher education participation in Ireland, it is important to gain an understanding of the factors that may influence the decision to progress to higher education. This chapter presents the results from empirical models of higher education participation using Irish data. It finds a student’s socioeconomic background is particularly important in determining participation but that this effect is mediated by their attainment in secondary school. With this in mind, the chapter also presents estimates of the main determinants of upper secondary exam performance. The results show that socioeconomic factors are very strong predictors of students’ second-level attainment; the authors conjecture that this may be driven by differences in school quality and/or parents’ values and attitudes towards education.