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Career and technical education
Can the promise of free education improve college attainment? Lessons from the Milwaukee Area Technical College Promise
This study found that the MATC Promise increased college attainment by encouraging Milwaukee high school students to access state and federal aid, and to consider matriculating to their local two-year college. The MATC Promise exemplifies the last-dollar model of college aid. If seniors at… more →
Linkage Between Fields of Concentration in High School Career-Technical Education and College Majors
In this descriptive study, we use longitudinal student-level administrative records from 4 cohorts of high school graduates in Kentucky to examine the extent to which students persist and attain post-secondary credentials in the CTE fields of concentration they choose in high school. To our… more →
Institutional heterogeneity in the education and earnings returns to postsecondary technical education: Evidence from Missouri
We estimate the education and earnings returns to enrolling in technical two-year degree programs at community colleges in Missouri. A unique feature of the Missouri context is the presence of a highly regarded, nationally ranked technical college: State Technical College of Missouri (State Tech… more →
Job Training Programs as Crime Deterrents? Evidence from a Low-Income Targeted Training Program RCT
The primary goal of job training programs is to improve employment and earning outcomes of participants. However, effective job training programs may have potential secondary benefits, including in the form of reduced arrests. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of a job training program in… more →
Can interactive online training make high school students more entrepreneurial? Experimental evidence from Rwanda
We study the short-run effects of a gamified online entrepreneurship training offered to high school students in Rwanda during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a randomized controlled trial, we estimate sizeable effects of the 6-week training on entrepreneurial activity. One month after the training… more →
Heterogeneity in High School Career and Technical Education Outcomes
High school Career and Technical Education (CTE) has received an increase in attention from both policymakers and researchers in recent years. This study fills a needed gap in the growing research base by examining heterogeneity within the wide range of programs falling under the… more →
Gender Peer Effects in Post-Secondary Vocational Education
This paper presents evidence that women and men benefit from having a higher percentage of female peers in post-secondary vocational STEM programs. I use idiosyncratic variation in gender composition across cohorts within majors within branches (campuses) for identification. Having a higher… more →
Optimal Allocation of Seats in the Presence of Peer Effects: Evidence from a Job Training Program
We consider the case in which the number of seats in a program is limited, such as a job training program or a supplemental tutoring program, and explore the implications that peer effects have for which individuals should be assigned to the limited seats. In the frequently-studied case in which… more →
Vocational Education: An International Perspective
Vocational education is formal education about work, and vocational programs of study typically target a narrow subset of middle-income occupations. In this chapter, we trace vocational education from competing 20th century education philosophies to its varied structures throughout the 21st… more →
Capacity and flexibility in community college CTE programs: program offerings and student success
This article asks whether small changes to community college courses and programs can help improve student outcomes. We use administrative data from the California Community College system, including millions of student records and detailed course-level information for most career-technical… more →
Stacking the Deck for Employment Success: Labor Market Returns to Stackable Credentials
With rapid technological transformations to the labor market, many working adults return to college after graduation to obtain additional training or credentials. Using a comparative individual fixed effects strategy and an administrative panel dataset of enrollment and employment in Virginia, we… more →
The Effects of Educational Supports for the "Missing One-Offs" in Vocational High Schools
A growing body of evidence suggests that vocationally focused programs of study substantially improve high-school completion and longer-run economic success. However, the corresponding recommendations to expand vocational programs may have unintended, negative consequences for low-income,… more →
The Effects of Career and Technical Education: Evidence from the Connecticut Technical High School System
We examine the effect of admission to 16 stand-alone technical high schools within the Connecticut Technical High School System (CTHSS) on student educational and labor market outcomes. To identify the causal effect of admission on student outcomes, we exploit the fact that CTHSS utilizes a… more →
Community College Pathways for Disadvantaged Students
In this paper we estimate the impacts of the “pathways” chosen by community college students—in terms of desired credentials and fields of study, as well as other choices and outcomes along the paths—on the attainment of credentials with labor market value. We focus on the extent to which there… more →