Pettit, BeckyDenice, Patrick2013-04-172013-04-172013-04-172012Denice_washington_0250O_11155.pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/1773/22519Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2012Mostly absent from the research investigating the economic returns to postsecondary education are examinations of the economic value of attending a for-profit institution, despite this sector's rapid growth over the past decade. Using the most recent available wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, I find that individuals who pursued their postsecondary education at a for-profit college earn significantly lower weekly compensation than individuals who did not attend a for-profit college. This difference is robust to the addition of individual, regional, and employment controls, and it is particularly concentrated among 2-year degree holders, women, and those working in the management and professional fields. Implications for the horizontal stratification of higher education are explored.application/pdfen-USCopyright is held by the individual authors.higher education; human capital; propensity score matching; signaling theory; stratificationSociologyHigher educationSociology of educationsociologyThesis