Perceived economic benefits of higher education: the case of Cyprus

Abstract

The paper examines the costs and economic benefits of higher education as these are perceived by final-form secondary school students in Cyprus. It also investigates the main influences on students' expected lifetime earnings. The findings are supportive of human capital theory: students who intended to enter third-level education expected their lifetime earnings to increase considerably as a result. In contrast, labour market entrants did not associate higher education with significantly higher earnings; they also believed its costs to be greater than those reported by higher education entrants. Moreover, the results indicate that students are largely realistic in their perceptions of the structure of earnings in the labour market.