R: College Distance Data

CollegeDistance

R Documentation

College Distance Data

Description

Cross-section data from the High School and Beyond survey conducted by the Department of Education in 1980, with a follow-up in 1986. The survey included students from approximately 1,100 high schools.

Usage

data("CollegeDistance")

Format

A data frame containing 4,739 observations on 14 variables.

gender: factor indicating gender.
ethnicity: factor indicating ethnicity (African-American, Hispanic or other).
score: base year composite test score. These are achievement tests given to high school seniors in the sample.
fcollege: factor. Is the father a college graduate?
mcollege: factor. Is the mother a college graduate?
home: factor. Does the family own their home?
urban: factor. Is the school in an urban area?
unemp: county unemployment rate in 1980.
wage: state hourly wage in manufacturing in 1980.
distance: distance from 4-year college (in 10 miles).
tuition: average state 4-year college tuition (in 1000 USD).
education: number of years of education.
income: factor. Is the family income above USD 25,000 per year?
region: factor indicating region (West or other).

Details

Rouse (1995) computed years of education by assigning 12 years to all members of the senior class. Each additional year of secondary education counted as a one year. Students with vocational degrees were assigned 13 years, AA degrees were assigned 14 years, BA degrees were assigned 16 years, those with some graduate education were assigned 17 years, and those with a graduate degree were assigned 18 years.

Stock and Watson (2007) provide separate data files for the students from Western states and the remaining students. CollegeDistance includes both data sets, subsets are easily obtained (see also examples).

Source

Online complements to Stock and Watson (2007).

References

Rouse, C.E. (1995). Democratization or Diversion? The Effect of Community Colleges on Educational Attainment. Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 12, 217–224.

Stock, J.H. and Watson, M.W. (2007). Introduction to Econometrics, 2nd ed. Boston: Addison Wesley.

Examples

## exclude students from Western states
data("CollegeDistance")
cd <- subset(CollegeDistance, region != "west")
summary(cd)