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College readiness
Strategic Disclosure of Test Scores: Evidence from US College Admissions
The impact of test-optional college admissions policies depends on whether applicants act strategically in disclosing test scores. We analyze individual applicants’ standardized test scores and disclosure behavior to 50 major US colleges for entry in fall 2021, when Covid-19 prompted widespread… more →
The Unintended Consequences of Academic Leniency
In response to widening achievement gaps and increased demand for post-secondary education, local and federal governments across the US have enacted policies that have boosted high school graduation rates without an equivalent rise in student achievement, suggesting a decline in academic… more →
Experimental Evidence on "Direct Admissions" from Four States: Impacts on College Application and Enrollment
Complexity and uncertainty loom large in the college application process. We leverage a largescale experiment that reduces administrative burden through a proactive guarantee of admission coupled with tailored information, a simplified application form, and automatic fee waiver to test the… more →
“Non-Submitters:” Evidence on Students Who Start but Don’t Complete a College Application
Not all students who could benefit from college apply. With novel data on over 1.2 million high schoolers, we show that nearly 25% start but never complete a college application. We use descriptive techniques, data visualizations, and fixed effects models to explore this population of college-… more →
College Counseling in the Classroom: Randomized Evaluation of a Teacher-Based Approach to College Advising
Tags: College readiness, EfficacyGuidance counselors provide the main source of college advising for low-income high school students, but are woefully understaffed in high-need schools. This paper evaluates an approach to school-based college advising that relies on teachers rather than counselors. Using a randomized control… more →
Virtual Charter Students Have Worse Labor Market Outcomes as Young Adults
Virtual charter schools are increasingly popular, yet there is no research on the long-term outcomes of virtual charter students. We link statewide education records from Oregon with earnings information from IRS records housed at the US Census Bureau to provide evidence on how virtual charter… more →
Are Algorithms Biased in Education? Exploring Racial Bias in Predicting Community College Student Success
Predictive analytics are increasingly pervasive in higher education. However, algorithmic bias has the potential to reinforce racial inequities in postsecondary success. We provide a comprehensive and translational investigation of algorithmic bias in two separate prediction models -- one… more →
Do Early Warning Systems Help High School Students Stay on Track for College? Mixed Methods Evaluation of the Ninth Grade Success Initiative
As the transition point between middle school and high school, ninth grade can either set a student up for long-term success or diminish a student’s likelihood of graduating high school altogether. Interventions that can help educators better meet the needs of students during this critical… more →
Teacher Retention in Early College High Schools and Texas STEM Academies: Understanding the Positive Impacts of College and Career Readiness School Models
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentA stable learning environment is critical to high school reforms aimed at promoting postsecondary educational success. High teacher attrition can disrupt stable learning environments by uprooting student-teacher relationships and harming school climate. Educational leaders need greater… more →
The Impacts and Experiences of Corequisite Remediation for Latinx Students
Colleges across the United States are now placing most or all students directly into college-level courses and providing supplementary, aligned academic support alongside the courses, also known as “corequisite remediation.” Developmental education reforms like corequisite remediation could… more →
CTE-Focused Dual Enrollment: Participation and Outcomes
Recent policy efforts have attempted to increase the number of dual enrollment courses offered within Career and Technical Education pathways and there is evidence to suggest that this practice is widespread. However, there is very little research on student participation in CTE dual enrollment… more →
The Enduring Struggle of Standards-Based Reform: Lessons from a National Research Center on College and Career-Ready Standards
Morgan S. Polikoff, Laura M. Desimone, Andrew C. Porter, Michael S. Garet, Amy Stornaiuolo, Katie Pak, Toni M. Smith, Mengli Song, Nelson Flores, Lynn S. Fuchs, Douglas Fuchs, T. Philip Nichols.Standards have been at the heart of state and federal efforts to improve education for several decades. Most recently, standards-based reforms have evolved with a focus on more ambitious "college- and career-ready" (CCR) standards. This paper synthesizes the results of a seven-year national… more →
The Power of “Free” College: Reducing Racial and Socioeconomic Inequalities in College Expectations
Promoting equality in college enrollment and completion must start early in students’ college-going journeys, including with their expectations to first earn a college degree. With a nationally representative sample of high school students, I evaluate the ability of a recent collection of… more →
The Role of Student Beliefs in Dual-Enrollment Courses
Dual-enrollment courses are theorized to promote students' preparedness for college in part by bolstering their beneficial beliefs, such as academic self-efficacy, educational expectations, and sense of college belonging. These beliefs may also shape students' experiences and outcomes in dual-… more →
College Major Restrictions and Student Stratification
Underrepresented minority (URM) college students have been steadily earning degrees in relatively less-lucrative fields of study since the mid-1990s. A decomposition reveals that this widening gap is principally explained by rising stratification at public research universities, many of which… more →
The Bottom Line on College Advising: Large Increases in Degree Attainment
We combine a large multi-site randomized control trial with administrative and survey data to demonstrate that intensive advising during high school and college leads to large increases in bachelor's degree attainment. Novel causal forest methods suggest that these increases are driven primarily… more →
The Effects of Middle School Remediation on Postsecondary Success: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Florida
Topics: Student LearningHigh school graduation rates in the United States are at an all-time high, yet many of these graduates are deemed not ready for postsecondary coursework when they enter college. This study examines the short-, medium-, and long-term effects of remedial courses in middle school using a regression… more →
Public Higher Education Costs and College Enrollment
How have changes in the costs of enrolling for full-time study at public 2-year and 4-year colleges have affected the decisions about whether and where to enroll in college? We exploit local differences in the growth of tuition at community colleges and public 4-year colleges to study the impact… more →
College Credit on the Table? Advanced Placement Course and Exam Taking
Millions of high school students who take an Advanced Placement (AP) course in one of over 30 subjects can earn college credit by performing well on the corresponding AP exam. Using data from four metro-Atlanta public school districts, we find that 15 percent of students’ AP courses do not… more →
Bringing Transparency to Predictive Analytics: A Systematic Comparison of Predictive Modeling Methods in Higher Education
Topics: MethodsColleges have increasingly turned to predictive analytics to target at-risk students for additional support. Most of the predictive analytic applications in higher education are proprietary, with private companies offering little transparency about their underlying models.