The Effects of Home Computers on School Enrollment

Approximately 9 out of 10 high school students who have access to a home computer use that computer to complete school assignments. Do these home computers, however, improve educational outcomes? Using the Computer and Internet Use Supplement to the 2001 Current Population Survey, I explore whether access to home computers increases the likelihood of school enrollment among teenagers who have not graduated from high school. A comparison of school enrollment rates reveals that 95.2 percent of children who have home computers are enrolled in school, whereas only 85.4 percent of children who do not have home computers are enrolled in school. I find a difference of roughly 7.7 percentage points in school enrollment rates after estimating a bivariate probit model for the joint probability of school enrollment and owning a home computer. Use of computers and the Internet by the child's mother and father are used as instrumental variables. These variables should affect computer ownership, but not school enrollment (after controlling for family income, parental education, and parental occupation). The estimates are not sensitive to alternative combinations of instruments and different samples. I interpret the results as providing evidence that home computers increase the likelihood of staying in school.