College choice in Taiwan: Factors influencing attendance at different colleges

Research studies have suggested that the dispersion of schooling is associated with income inequality. Identification of any inequalities in the educational system is affected by data collection politics. Data needed to identify such inequalities is sorely lacking in Taiwan. The Ministry of Education collects detailed information on institutional finance but nothing on student-level information. This study aims to collect student-level data in higher education to answer two research questions: (1) What are the characteristics of students attending the different types of higher education institutions? (2) What factors affect an individual's choice in the types of higher education institutions? This study used a cross-sectional survey to collect information of first year college students at the four different types of higher education institutions in Taiwan. The institutional survey has a high response rate of 87% and contains information on 8036 students. Regarding the first research question, this study finds that there are significant differences in student characteristics across the four college types. To answer the second research question, three college choice models using different estimation methods were tested. This study found that the two-step sequencing of decision model is the most appropriate for analyzing college choice in Taiwan. The conditional probit estimation model found that between public and private comprehensive colleges, individuals that are more likely to enroll at public comprehensive colleges are not only more academically prepared but also more educationally aspired and from better socio-economic backgrounds than those at private comprehensive colleges. The model also found that between public and private technical colleges, individuals that are more likely to enroll at private technical colleges are from better socio-economic backgrounds, from private academic and urban high schools, and also more educationally aspired by their parents than those at public technicals. This study suggests that inequality in the higher education level is a continuation of inequalities in the upper-secondary level. One major goal of this study is to voice the need to collect this type of student data base over time in order to track how the determinants of college choice and its magnitude have changed over the years.