School Resources and Student Outcomes

Abstract

In this article, David Card and Alan Krueger review the literature examining how school resources affect students' educational attainment and earnings. After addressing the challenges that researchers face in studying such a connection, the authors describe the theoretical framework they used to interpret the literature on schooling, school quality, and earnings. The framework is guided by four propositions: that earnings rise with educational attainment; that the marginal payoff to additional schooling is higher for those who attend quality schools; that, if the monetary payoff to an additional year of schooling rises, some students will attend school longer; and that a portion of the observed association between earnings and education is due to unobserved factors. After an account of the empirical findings in these studies, the authors conclude that there is some evidence that school resources affect earnings and educational attainment, although much uncertainty remains in the literature.