ADC. Suma de Negocios · 2024

Employment and salaries of university graduates: impact evaluation of a financial aid programme by means of propensity score matching

Educational funding in Venezuela is limited, especially in private higher education institutions, due to existing budget constraints. Despite these limitations, some grant programmes manage to serve a significant proportion of students. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the impact of a financial aid programme at a Latin American university by analysing the probability of employment and remuneration at three key points in time: during the degree programme, upon graduation, and three years after graduation. A sample of graduates from various programmes was used, and information about their career paths was collected by means of a follow-up survey. The analysis was conducted using propensity score matching through the Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT) estimator, employing both parametric and non-parametric methods. The results indicate an inverse relationship between the financial aid received and the salary earned during the evaluation periods, alongside a positive relationship with the probability of being employed. However, none of the estimated coefficients were significant, whether for the nearest neighbour, the 5 or 10 nearest neighbours, the Kernel estimation, or the local linear estimation, taking into account the common support and the 20% trimming.