Identity economics and higher education

The aim of this paper is to propose a hypothesis explaining the rather surprising choices of Polish prospective students, who prefer to study fields that do not entail a high salary in the future over those that increase the likelihood of getting a well-paid job. Our hypothesis says that one of the causes of such decisions is a norm that says that a person who did not study is less worthy than a college graduate. In order to explicate this hypothesis in detail, we use the framework of identity economics.