A Study on the Rates of Return to Education

우리나라의 교육투자 수익률 분석에 관한 연구

The purpose of the study was to estimate and analyze the rates of return to educational investment. The study was designed to estimate the social and private rates of return to educational investment by school level and sex in order to measure education's economic value with a viewpoint of human capital theory. The produced result of this study are as follows. The social rates of return to education turned out to be male high school 7.94%, male junior college 3.74%, male university 8.50% female high school 4.30%, female junior college 10.11%, female university 6.92%. The private rates of return to education turned out to be male high school 8.41%, male junior college 3.39%, male university 8.38%, female high school 7.90%, female junior college 10.34%, female university 7.33%, In order to measure economic value of educational investment, rates of return to education were compared with those to physical capital investment. Social rates of return to education turned out to be profitable for female junior college, while for private rates of return to education turned out to be profitable in all school levels except for male junior college.