Educational Authority in the ''Open Door'' Marketplace
Labor Market Consequences of For-profit, Nonprofit, and Fictional Educational Credentials
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2328405 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicole M Deterding (0000-0001-5819-8935, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI, USA, corresponding author), D S Pedulla (0000-0002-4766-2090, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 89 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 155-170 |
| Publication date | 2016-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociology of Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0407 • E-ISSN: 1939-8573 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0038040716652455 |
| OpenAlex | W2418103525 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 18 |
| References cited | 25 |
In recent years, private for-profit education has been the fastest growing segment of the U.S. postsecondary system. Traditional hiring models suggest that employers clearly and efficiently evaluate college credentials, but this changing institutional landscape raises an important question: How do employers assess credentials from emerging institutions? Building on theories of educational authority, we hypothesize that employers respond to an associate's degree itself over the institution from which it came. Using data from a field experiment that sent applications to administrative job openings in three major labor markets, we found that employers responded similarly to applicants listing a degree from a fictional college and applicants listing a local for-profit or nonprofit institution. There is some evidence that educational authority is incomplete, but employers who prefer degree-holders do not appear to actively evaluate institutional quality. We conclude by discussing implications of our work for research on school to labor market links within the changing higher education marketplace
Business · Economic growth · Economics · Higher education · Institution · Labour economics · Listing (finance) · Political science · Public relations · Quality (philosophy) · Social science · Sociology · Work (physics) · Finance · Higher Education Research Studies · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality · Marketing · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research
An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences
The rise of for-profit teacher preparation programmes
Moving the Mark
Getting a Foot in the Door
Does alma mater matter? An audit study of labour market outcomes of Canadian Bachelor's Degree recipients
Competing in Inclusive Education
Does Regulating For‐profit Colleges Improve Educational Outcomes? What We Know, What We Don't Know, and What We Need to Find Out
Labor Market Returns to MBAs From Less‐Selective Universities
Skill recognition as social investment. Employer perceptions of the value of alternative credentials in the childcare sector
Degree power
Classed outcomes
Pedagogy and Profit? Efforts to Develop and Sell Digital Courseware Products for Higher Education
How Do Online Degrees Affect Labor Market Prospects? Evidence from a Correspondence Audit Study
Employer Decision Making
The Demand Side of Hiring
What does successful university graduation signal to employers? A factorial survey experiment on sheepskin effects
Labor Market Inequality, Debt, and the Consequences of Sub-Baccalaureate Higher Education
Higher education non-completion, employers, and labor market integration
The Credential Society
The Schooled Society
Pedigree
The Value of Postsecondary Credentials in the Labor Market
Higher education as a filter
Signaling in Retrospect and the Informational Structure of Markets
Theoretical sociology
Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination
Generating Inequality
Discrimination in the Credential Society
Do Employers Prefer Workers Who Attend For-Profit Colleges? Evidence from a Field Experiment
Forward and backward, horizontal and vertical
Black Students in 21st Century Higher Education
Hiring as Cultural Matching
The Social Sources of Educational Credentialism
Do Employers Really Need More Educated Youth
The Mutability of Educational Credentials as Hiring Criteria
Charter Building and Labor Market Contacts in Two-Year Colleges
Social and Economic Returns to College Education in the United States
Pride and Prejudice
Getting a Job
The Effects of Education as an Institution
| Unique citing works | 18 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2025 (9) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 18 |