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The socioeconomic consequences of qualitative variations in educational experiences are evaluated for a sample of young adult males who were first surveyed in 1955 as high school sophomores and followed up in 1970. Models of institutional influence and of within-school processes are developed for both secondary and postsecondary education to integrate and refine the literatures on school effects and returns to schooling. Rather impressive occupational status and earnings differentials are associated with gross school-to-school differences and with qualitative differences in educational experiences within institutions. Secondary school characteristics and experiences weigh particularly upon the market outcomes of youth who terminated formal schooling at high school graduation. We suggest that the traditional use for quantitative indices of schooling (years of school completed or certification levels) in assessing the market consequences of investments in education needs to be supplemented by information on qualitative variations in educational experiences. Additionally, the likelihood that school experiences may have quite different implications for selected target populations deserves further consideration. The simplistic assumption implicit in much of the school-effects literature that institutional effects are homogeneous may actually mask quite important consequences for certain students.
Griffin et al. (Fri,) studied this question.