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Why do tertiary education graduates regret their study program? A comparison between Spain and the Netherlands

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Abstract

In this paper we investigate the determinants of regret of study program for tertiary education graduates in Spain and the Netherlands. These two countries differ in their educational system in terms of the tracking structure in their secondary education and the strength of their education-labor market linkages in tertiary education. Therefore, by comparing Spain and the Netherlands, we aim at learning about the consequences that the two educational systems might have on the regret of study program in tertiary education. Basing on the psychological literature on regret, we derive some expectations on the determinants of regret of study program. Results reveal that both, education track and education-labor mismatch of tertiary education, are important determinants of the likelihood of program regret. Results allow us to derive some policy recommendations on the tertiary education system.

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Notes

  1. See Breen and García-Peñalosa (2002) for gender perspective on choice of education under uncertainty and Borghans and Groot (1999) for the consecutive occupational results of gendered educational choices.

  2. A full description of the survey is provided in the report by Allen and van der Velden (2009). More information is also available in http://www.reflexproject.org.

  3. For a discussion on the educational systems see the previous section. Regarding sample sizes, other countries such as Germany or Austria (with a similar education system as in the Netherlands) are also included in the Reflex survey, but their sample size is significantly smaller (1,686 and 1,821 respondents for Germany and Austria, respectively).

  4. The individuals who reported that they would decide not to study at all were dropped from the analysis, since they represent a residual group and we understand that their answer signalizes being generally disappointed with the educational system and their subsequent labor market experience rather than the study program.

  5. The cross-country difference in the impact of the academic track on program regret is statistically significant (T test = −60.8475, p value = 0.000).

  6. Again the cross-country difference is found statistically significant for the variable broad program (T test = 152.5545, p value = 0.000).

  7. T test for cross-national differences in the effect of horizontal mismatch: T = −66.9208, p value = 0.0000.

    T test for cross-national differences in the effect of over-education: T Test = 23.465, p value = 0.0000.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the editor and two anonymous referees for their comments. The authors wish to thank the REFLEX project for granting access to their data. Montserrat Vilalta-Bufí gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the grant ECO2009-06953 and from the Government of Catalonia through the Barcelona GSE Research Network and grant 2009SGR1051.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Facultat d’Economia i Empresa and CREB, Universitat de Barcelona, Avda. Diagonal 690, 08034, Barcelona, Spain

    Montserrat Vilalta-Bufí

  2. Escola Universitària del Maresme (Tecnocampus Mataró-Maresme, Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Avda. Ernest Lluch 32, 08302, Mataró, Spain

    Aleksander Kucel

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Correspondence to Montserrat Vilalta-Bufí.

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Kucel, A., Vilalta-Bufí, M. Why do tertiary education graduates regret their study program? A comparison between Spain and the Netherlands. High Educ 65, 565–579 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-012-9563-y

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