ADMISSION SCORES AND EMPLOYMENT OUTCOMES OF UNIVERSITY GRADUATES: IMPACT OF REAL ESTATE CYCLES?

Abstract

The world-class faculties, rich resources, and futurist teaching facilities make Singapore the home to the top tertiary institutions worldwide. Every year, competitive students around the world apply to the universities in Singapore. This paper pioneers in examining the impact of exogeneous factors on the education sector in Singapore. Firstly, this study probes the impact of admission scores and macroeconomic cycles on the graduate’s mean salary. Specifically, casual relationship between the admission scores and fresh graduate’s mean salary is further explored. Secondly, the study investigates the impact of real estate cycle on the popularity of real estate major. The paper combines the two streams of past literatures on college enrolment and graduation outcomes to further elucidate the perspective of “cycles of college admission and graduation”. Fixed Effect panel data regression and Regression Discontinuity are employed to examine the college admissions and graduate outcomes of students from Junior College and Polytechnics from 2008 to 2021, respectively. The study finds that both Gross Domestic Product and Property Price Index growths exhibit negative correlation with graduate’s salary. Furthermore, the study identifies a cutoff that differentiates the popularity of university’s courses among Junior College and Polytechnics students. Lastly, the study demonstrates a strong positive correlation between property price growth and the popularity of real estate course in Singapore.