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A growing literature establishes that good teachers are essential for high quality educational systems. However, little is known about teachers' skills formation during their college years. In this paper [the authors] use a novel panel data set combining two standardized tests for Colombian students: one that is taken at the end of senior year in high school and the other when students are near graduation from college. Accounting for selection into majors [the authors] test for the extent to which education majors relatively improve or deteriorate their skills in comparison to students in other programs. [The authors] analyze three sets of skills: quantitative reasoning, native language (Spanish) and foreign language (English). After around five years of college, teachers' skills vis-a-vis those in other majors deteriorate in quantitative reasoning, although they deteriorate less for those in math-oriented programs. For native and foreign language [the authors] do not find evidence of robust changes in relative learning.

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