CARRYOVER EFFECT OF ELITE HIGH SCHOOL TO JOB MARKET FOR UNIVERSITY GRADUATES: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM A UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION DATA

This paper estimates carryover effects of attending elite high schools on job markets after students’ university graduation. Most of the previous literature focused on returns of elite or private school attendance on academic achievements in university education. Instead, this study investigates whether the education effect of elite high school is carried forward to the job market after university studies. Our study utilizes unique university-employment-matched data obtained from one Korean university administration. In addition to students’ academic performance, such as grade point average (GPA), we also include participation in extracurricular activities to better control for the self-selection effect portable from elite high school as well as the quality of university education. The empirical results show that the education at elite high schools does not only positively affect the academic performance at university, but interestingly, it is found to be carried forward to the job market even after university graduation.