Cleaning the slate? School choice and educational outcomes in Spain Cecilia Albert • Carlos Garcı ´a-Serrano Published online: 9 February 2010 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 Abstract Using data from a nation-wide survey on Spanish workers, this paper examines two issues: the determinants of school choice (distinguishing between public and private schools) and the influence of school type on the individual’s educational attainment. For that, bivariate probit models are estimated. The analysis is carried out separately by gender and birth cohort. We find that individuals who have attended a private school come from households with higher socio-cultural level and that having attended a private school does not raise the probability of reaching a higher degree, once potential endogeneity of school choice and educational outcomes are taken into account. However, the latter result depends on the instrumental variable used for observed school type in models of demand for higher education. Keywords School choice  Higher education  Human capital Introduction The aim of this paper is to investigate the apparent correlation between school choice and subsequent educational outcomes of individuals. In particular, the question we try to answer is whether attending a private school generates a relevant positive impact on the individuals’ probability of obtaining a higher degree. The potential relationship between school choice and educational outcomes may not have an explanation as simple as it seems at first sight, since it might be the result of the existence of selection bias. It is possible that families who choose a private school owe better characteristics to raise the educational level of their children. These factors may be higher income, higher attained educational level of father and/or mother, higher preference for education, and/or higher social capital and better labour market connections. In other words, school choice would not be an exogenous variable when one tries to estimate the effect of school type on educational C. Albert  C. Garcı ´a-Serrano (&) Departamento de Fundamentos de Economı ´a e Historia Econo ´mica, Universidad de Alcala ´, Plaza Victoria 2, 28802 Alcala ´ de Henares, Madrid, Spain e-mail: carlos.garcia@uah.es 123 High Educ (2010) 60:559–582 DOI 10.1007/s10734-010-9315-9