Disrupted Academic Careers: The Returns to Time Off after High School

Abstract

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. High-ability students who did not attend college had lower earnings seven years later, but forgoing college had little effect on earnings for lower-ability students.