Does Postsecondary Education Result in Civic Benefits?

Abstract

Public support for higher education depends in part on the idea that additional postsecondary education results in civic benefits. Among these civic benefits are voting, volunteering and donating to non-profit causes. Establishing a causal link between additional postsecondary education and the probability of engaging in civic behaviors for any individual is key. We expand on the literature on the civic benefits for higher education by utilizing a rich set of location-based instruments to identify the relationship between additional postsecondary education and civic behaviors, including voting, volunteering and donating money to non-profit organizations. Using data from the National Longitudinal survey of 1997, we estimate the impact of postsecondary education on civic behaviors for a group of young people who were age 29-33 by 2013. These new estimates indicate that an additional year of higher education increased the probability of voting in the 2008 election by 12.8 percent, and by 7.5 percent in the 2010 election. We also find statistically significant impacts of postsecondary education on both voluntarism and donations to non-profits, with effect sizes of .1 for voluntarism and .18 for donations.

Keywords: Postsecondary education, externalities, civic outcomes, human capital, instrumental variables, spatial analysis

JEL Classification: J24, D62, I2