Do Employers Prefer Workers Who Attend For-Profit Colleges? Evidence from a Field Experiment

45 Pages Posted: 12 Oct 2014

See all articles by Rajeev Darolia

Rajeev Darolia

Martin School of Public Policy

Cory Koedel

University of Missouri - Economics

Paco Martorell

RAND Corporation

Katie Wilson

RAND Corporation

Francisco Pérez-Arce

Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR)

Date Written: June 11, 2014

Abstract

This paper reports results from a resume-based field experiment designed to examine employer preferences for job applicants who attended for-profit colleges. For-profit colleges have seen sharp increases in enrollment in recent years despite alternatives such as public community colleges being much cheaper. We sent almost 9,000 fictitious resumes of young applicants who recently completed their schooling to online job postings in six occupational categories and tracked employer callback rates. We find no evidence that employers prefer applicants with resumes listing a for-profit college relative to those whose resumes list either a community college or no college at all.

Suggested Citation

Darolia, Rajeev and Koedel, Cory and Martorell, Paco and Wilson, Katie and Perez-Arce, Francisco, Do Employers Prefer Workers Who Attend For-Profit Colleges? Evidence from a Field Experiment (June 11, 2014). RAND Working Paper Series WR-1054, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2508434 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2508434

Rajeev Darolia (Contact Author)

Martin School of Public Policy ( email )

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Cory Koedel

University of Missouri - Economics ( email )

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Paco Martorell

RAND Corporation ( email )

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Katie Wilson

RAND Corporation ( email )

1776 Main Street
P.O. Box 2138
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
United States

Francisco Perez-Arce

Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) ( email )

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Los Angeles, CA 90089-3332
United States

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