“Against all odds”. Does awareness of the risk of failure matter for educational choices?

This paper examines the effect of information on dropout risks on preferences for academic
versus vocational education. Switzerland is used as a case study because of its strongly developed national vocational education system along with marked differences in preferences for and enrolment rates in academic education across its three language regions. Since the education system is harmonized in terms of expectations for the required cognitive performance for an academic degree, this means that different enrolments in academic education need to be partially corrected later by a stronger selection during the studies. By means of a survey experiment, we investigate whether these more pronounced preferences for academic education stem from the fact that educational risks are unknown when making educational decisions, or whether preferences are so strong that these risks are willingly tolerated. Our results suggest that the latter seems more likely to be the case and that a correction of the mismatch cannot come solely via the deterrent effect of the higher risks of dropping out of education.