A Deterrent from Schooling? Graduating High School When Duration Increases

Bunching in the number of students who complete the highest grade of a schooling level and then dropout, is a common phenomenon and suggests factors that change incentives to enroll at the next level may affect their continuation decisions. In this paper, I assess a nationwide policy in Ghana that increased high school duration by a year to identify a possible trade-off between increased years of schooling and the likelihood of graduating high school in a setting where high school is neither free nor compulsory. I exploit this exogenous shock for the universe of middle school graduates at this transition point and find that those who expect to be affected by the policy spend more years in pre-tertiary schooling, but this comes at a small but statistically significant cost to graduating. Despite strong concerns by policymakers that some students would be precluded from obtaining a high school education, the estimated trade-off does not appear to be economically significant. Furthermore, sub-groups in the population who may be disadvantaged - females, students from low socio-economic backgrounds and lower ability students are not more likely to bear the brunt. If at all, they have significantly lower cost.