Does Expert Advice Improve Educational Choice?

Abstract

This paper reports evidence that an individual meeting with a study counselor at high school significantly improves the quality of choice of tertiary educational field, as self-assessed 18 months after graduation from college. To address endogeneity, we explore the variation in study counseling practices between schools as an instrumental variable (IV). Following careful scrutiny of the validity of the IV, our results indicate a significant and positive influence of study counseling on the quality of educational choice, foremost among males and those with low educated parents. The overall result is stable across a number of robustness checks.