Abstract

FRANCO-GALLEGO, Jorge Hernán. Higher Education in Colombia: The Student Value Added-Remuneration Relationship. educ.educ. [online]. 2019, vol.22, n.1, pp.25-50. ISSN 0123-1294.  https://doi.org/10.5294/edu.2019.22.1.2.

The relationship between value added in education (VAE) and subsequent remunerations in the labor market received by undergraduates from Colombian higher education is analyzed, proposing that this relationship is explained by the students’ soft skills. The aims are: a) to contribute to assessing the impact of higher education; b) to expand the perspective, potential and use of VAE from the institutional to the individual; and c) to identify the salaries offered by the labor market to recognize the efforts and particularities of undergraduates. The method used is based on the student VAE, which is a scoring of academic test results free of socioeconomic, family and previous academic capital effects. This is a better measure of academic performance attributable to individual characteristics, typical of each student. The statistical model used to estimate VAE is multilevel. To analyze the effect of this VAE on salaries, linear regression was used. Calculations were made with census information of Colombian higher education for the 2010-2015 period (sample: 489,236 students). Statistical evidence is provided to affirm that there is a direct and significant relationship between student VAE and remuneration in the labor market and that this VAE approximates a measure of undergraduates’ soft skills, understood and included within the concept of “student resilience effect” proposed herein.

Keywords : Informal learning; informal education; aptitude; education and employment; competency based teaching; performance based education; higher education; university education.

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