The Role of Non-cognitive Skills in Higher Education Decisions

Non-cognitive skills are widely recognized in economics as an important factor that may affect various social outcomes. However, when speaking about personality in educational context, researchers mainly focus on school. This paper aims to disentangle the relationship between non-cognitive skills and individual trajectory in higher education. Educational trajectory is defined as a sequence of choices that one makes, including whether to pursue university degree or not, major choice, university quality choice and probability of graduation. Data are collected from a nationally representative Russian survey RLMS-HSE, 2011, 2016–2018 and include detailed information on individuals aged 15-19 and 23-29. We rely on the Big Five factor model and Locus of control (LOC) to represent non-cognitive skills& We estimate several probit- and multinomial logit- models. Non-cognitive skills appear to be very consistent predictors of educational trajectories, though the results differ across income groups and genders. Openness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and internal locus of control showed positive correlation with educational attainment. The mechanisms are likely to be related to family environment, productivity and individual wage expectations. The paper concludes with some remarks dedicated to the relevance of non-cognitive skills in higher education context.