Do Starting Salaries for Graduates Measure the Quality of Education? A Review of Studies by Russian and Foreign Authors

Abstract

This paper is a review of oeuvres studying the factors that determine starting salaries of university graduates. The focus is laid upon the works addressing the question: To what extent can   starting salaries for graduates be indicative of the quality of education received? We discuss the theoretical conceptions shedding light on the reasons for differences in salaries of fresh graduates: the theory of human capital, the signaling theory of education, the theory of equalizing differences, and empirical studies aimed at measuring the influence various factors have on the size of starting salaries. An analysis of the oeuvres has shown that, despite the important role played by the quality of education, there are many other factors that can have an impact on the salary size. Such factors include diversity of graduates, diversity of jobs, market imperfections, individual preferences of graduates and their strategies of entering the labor market. The provided review and critical analysis of foreign studies designed to assess the correlations between the quality of higher education and the level of starting salaries for graduates allows us to define the general requirements to data quality in case Russia adopts the system of university graduate monitoring.