外省籍民衆的經濟社會地位明顯高於本省籍民衆，這項族群差異一 直受到研究者的注意。由於教育成就是影響社會經濟地位最重要的因 素，解釋外省籍民衆的高教育成就乃成爲學者研究的重點。過去學界對 此議題的研究，曾有大致相同的結論：因父母集中任職於軍公教部門而 獲得的學費補貼，是外省籍民衆高等教育成就顯著高於其他族群的原因 之一。范雲和張晉芬的研究以新的資料爲基礎，以不同的發現挑戰了這 個傳統的智慧。
然而兩位作者的研究有兩個値得討論的地方。第一，它忽視快速經 濟發展而導致的世代差異。臺灣在70年代之後因爲經濟繁榮帶來國民所 得的快速提高，使得大學學費對中低收入的家庭，不再是沈重的負擔； 軍公教家庭的學費補貼因此也失去原有的優勢。學費補貼對教育成就產 生的優勢，因此應比較顯著地作用於高年齡層世代上。第二，兩位作者 的研究將本省籍和外省籍樣本分開分析，因此偏離了這個議題原本的問 題意識：外省籍民衆之教育成就高於本省籍民衆是否來自學費補貼？兩 位的研究因此未能賦予這個重要議題結論性的發現。
本研究使用范、張研究的同一筆資料，將世代差異列入分析，同時 也將兩個族群合併分析，以評估學費補貼是否讓外省籍民衆在教育上具 有優勢。研究發現：學費補貼確實讓外省籍民衆的高等教育具有優勢； 這項優勢在高年齡層世代上，更爲顯著。同時，如同先前研究所指出 的，學費補貼並非單一的因素；軍公教的職業情境應也是重要的因素。

Differences in educational attainment between Chinese mainlanders and native Taiwanese contributed significantly to the differences between the two groups in terms of socioeconomic status in Taiwan. For many years it was assumed by many local scholars that differences in educational attainment were largely due to tuition subsidies for the children of government employees—a sector dominated by Chinese mainlanders. This assumption was challenged by two researchers using new data on tuition subsidies gathered through a national survey. Their research however has overlooked the social change effects of economic development, and their statistical models failed to tackle the core question of whether higher educational attainment among Chinese mainlanders can be ascribed to tuition subsidies. This paper uses the same above-mentioned data to confirm the conventional wisdom: subsidies to the children of government employees contributed significantly to higher educational attainment among Chinese mainlanders prior to the period of intensive economic development in Taiwan. This advantage was significantly reduced, but not eliminated, in the later stage when college tuition was relatively affordable to the families with lower incomes. The positive correlation with parental employment in the public sector has also steadily decreased.