The DOI matches its Crossref record; 118 of the 120 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Social and Economic Returns to College Education in the United States
Abstract
Education correlates strongly with most important social and economic outcomes such as economic success, health, family stability, and social connections. Theories of stratification and selection created doubts about whether education actually caused good things to happen. Because schools and colleges select who continues and who does not, it was easy to imagine that education added little of substance. Evidence now tips the balance away from bias and selection and in favor of substance. Investments in education pay off for individuals in many ways. The size of the direct effect of education varies among individuals and demographic groups. Education affects individuals and groups who are less likely to pursue a college education more than traditional college students. A smaller literature on social returns to education indicates that communities, states, and nations also benefit from increased education of their populations; some estimates imply that the social returns exceed the private returns.
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“the increase in college-educated people will boost tax revenue and reduce public expenditures in healthcare and other areas (Baum, Ma, and Payea 2013; Hout, 2012).”
From Wealth, Race, and Under-Addressed Financial Need in Federal Student Aid Policy (2025) · cites this paper as Hout, 2012
In the citing paper
“Reviews of existing research on returns to higher education suggests high rates of return to college, even for marginal students (Oreopoulos and Peteronjevic, 2013, Hout, 2012, Barrow and Malamud, 2015).”
From Keeping College Options Open: A Field Experiment to Help all High School Seniors Through the College Application Process (2019) · cites this paper as Hout, 2012
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Metadata
- Authors
- Hout, M.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hout, Michael
- ORCID
- Hout, Michael
- Venue
- Annual Review of Sociology
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2012-08-11
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 379-400
- ISSN
- 0360-0572 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-2115
- OpenAlex
- W2162075074
- Cited by
- 943
- References
- 120
- Citations by year
- 2026: 49 · 2025: 81 · 2024: 72 · 2023: 90 · 2022: 69 · 2021: 102 · 2020: 53 · 2019: 87 · 2018: 95 · 2017: 70 · 2016: 62 · 2015: 60 · 2014: 28 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 9.09
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Annual Review of Sociology (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- Berkeley Population Center, University of California Berkeley
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
- Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
- Keywords
- returns to education, university education, social returns, economic returns, educational stratification, selection effects, education investment
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