Uncertainties and Risks Determining Individual Demand for Higher Education: A Sample from Mersin University

Abstract

There are some risks and uncertainties like imperfect intrapersonal assessments, size of investment in education, unknown future demand conditions in labor market, and students’ distorted knowledge about the quality of schooling around decision to enter higher education. These risks and uncertainties may cause underinvestment in higher education and/or influence program choices. In a group of higher education students from Mersin University Department of English Language Teaching (in Mersin, Turkey), opinions on these factors or conditions were gathered through a questionnaire. Results show that students have learned from their previous attainments so they are mostly aware of their abilities, have considered future employment conditions, and their assessments on quality of schooling were distorted. Although they are risk averse, they did not consider the cost of higher education as a criterion for school choice. It is recommended that risks and uncertainties around higher education demand should be examined together with students’ secondary school and family backgrounds.