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...

Spence (1973) noted that individuals' choice of educational quantity — measured by years of schooling — may stem partially from a desire to signal their ability to the labor market. This paper asks if individuals' choice of educational quality — measured by college reputation — may...

This paper explores the implications of measuring college productivity in two different dimensions: earning and learning. We compute system-wide measures using administrative data from the country of Colombia that link social security records to students' performance on a national college...