大學聯招考生在選系或選校？

Do Students Care More about their Major or their University's Reputation? Evidence from Taiwan's Joint College Entrance Examination

本研究利用69至85學年度大學聯考第一至第三類組最低錄取原始總分建立各類組學生選校與選系傾向的量化指標。由於此指標的建立需有校系排名，因而建立選校與選系指標之前，本文亦討論學系與大學於各年度排名變化的情況。接著建立各年度完全選校與完全選系的各自排行榜，這兩個排行榜再與各年度實際的排行榜相比，即可得某一年度的考生是較偏選校或選系。透過此指標的比較，本文發現第一類組最偏向選校，第二類組次之，第三類組最偏向選系。最後再透過各學系未來就業專長的薪資比較，發現各類組考生著重選系或選校的結果與各類組中各學系專業化程度及其未來就業薪資的差異有關，亦即考生在大學校系選擇上，其實是在做一項人力資本的投資行為，並非盲目選校或選系。

This study used the JCEE entrance scores for each department of each university, from 1980 to 1996, to quantify the emphasis of students on the university's reputation and on their own major（departmental specialty）. All sampled universities and departments were ranked by regression. The university rank and department rank were used to construct a hypothetical university first-ranking and a hypothetical department first-ranking. These two hypothetical rankings were then compared with the actual ranking to see whether students cared more about the university's reputation or their own intended major. Students were divided into 3 groups based on their majors. It was found that group 1 subjects cared about the university much more than the other two groups, while group 3 subjects cared more about their intended major. This study shows that the different preferences of different groups may be largely a reflection of students' choices to maximize their human-capital value in the future.