Disrupted Academic Careers: The Returns To Time Off After High School

This paper asks how academic breaks after high school affect individuals’ college and labor market outcomes. We exploit a policy that altered academic calendars in two regions of Colombia, which caused thousands of high school graduates to have to wait an extra semester to start college. Using administrative data and a synthetic control design, we show that the academic break caused many students to forgo enrolling in college at all. The academic break reduced the early-career earnings of students with high levels of academic preparation, but it had little impact on earnings for less-prepared students.

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