1. Jana Fiserova and John Anchor
Student Perceptions of the Financial Returns to Higher Education in the Czech Republic, Poland and England: Evidence from Business Schools
Jana Fiserova and John Anchor
SRHE conference December 2010

2. Introduction and background
Unusual in focusing on expectations as most studies in this area have attempted to measure actual returns
2009/2010 unique survey data (1411) from three Czech (572) and four Polish (475) faculties of economics and two English (364) business schools
First year home students asked about their future earnings expectations in two scenarios and two points in time
First job immediately after graduation from university and 10 years later
After completing high school (if they had not entered HE) and 10 years later

3. Expected earnings: Education and experience
Level of education and experience ≈
Secondary
School
Secondary School
+10 years
University
+ 10 years

4. Rates of return: short-cut method
where
E is average earnings of an individual who has a j level and an i level of education respectively
S is years of schooling
r is the rate of return to education
Eu are earnings of an individual with a university education
Es are earnings of an individual with a secondary education
S are years of higher education
r is the private rate of return to education
15,000 is the threshold of £15,000
0.09 is the size of instalment (9%)

5. Gender structure
University of Rzeszow
Catholic University of Lublin (KUL)
University of Marie Curie – Sklodowska (UMCS)
Politechnika Lubelska (PL)
University of Economics in Prague
Technical University of Liberec University of Pardubice
University of Huddersfield
University of Staffordshire
Gender make up of the samples reflects the actual gender distribution in the respective institutions

6. Rates of return - Poland
The rates vary from 9.76% to % and the average expected rate of return is %

7. Rates of return – Czech Republic
The rates vary from 10.84% to % and the average expected rate of return is %

8. Rates of return – England
The rates vary between 13.72% and 27.53% and the average rate of return is expected to be 20.53%

9. Conclusions There is a significant pay off to higher education
The higher the level of education and the greater the experience, the greater the salary expectations
Rates of returns to higher education are larger in the medium term than immediately after graduation
Students value a university degree at least as much as 10 years of post A-levels labour market experience
In England (20.53%) rates of return are higher than in the Czech Republic (14.66%) and Poland (15.53%)

10. Thank you for your attention
Any questions?
Thank you for your attention