Cycling for Education? Heterogeneous Preferences for Academic Tracks at Secondary School

Using a unique data set from the Netherlands, I estimate a discrete choice demand model under congestion effects to recover preferences for secondary school tracks between parents with different socioeconomic status (SES) but equally proficient children. I find that highly educated parents are willing to let their offspring commute longer distances to attend tracks that grant direct admission to university. Valuation heterogeneity for such options explains more than half of the observed enrollment gap between students from different SES divides. These results suggest that low-SES children sort into academic tracks with lower economic prospects, even in schooling systems with negligible choice restrictions.