The Effects of College Education on Career Earnings in the NBA

Abstract

The purpose of our research is to investigate whether the high schoolbasketball player is better off attending or forgoing his college career to enter the NBAdirectly out of high school. We measure “better off” by total salary earned in the first tenyears of a player’s NBA career. Using both OLS and a Heckit model, to control forpossible sample selection bias, our results suggest that although college is an investmentperiod for athletes, rational athletes do understand the opportunity cost of each year spentin college, with the most talented players forgoing their college education altogether.(J30, J44, J50).