Higher education
The Dynamic Market for Short-Cycle Higher Education Programs
Tags: Higher education, Human capitalShort-cycle higher education programs (SCPs) form skilled human capital in two or three years and could be key to upskilling and reskilling the workforce, provided their supply responds fast and nimbly to local labor market needs. We study determinants of SCP entry and exit in Colombia for… more →
The Limited Impact of Free College Policies
Tags: Higher educationDespite the growing popularity of free college proposals, countries with higher college subsidies tend to have higher enrollment rates but not higher graduation rates. To capture this evidence and evaluate potential free college policies, we rely on a dynamic model of college enrollment,… more →
What makes a program good? Evidence from short-cycle higher education programs in five developing countries
Short-cycle higher education programs (SCPs) can play a central role in skill development and higher education expansion, yet their quality varies greatly within and among countries. In this paper we explore the relationship between programs’ practices and inputs (quality determinants) and… more →
The contribution of short-cycle programs to student outcomes: Evidence from Colombia
Tags: Higher educationShort-cycle higher education programs (SCPs), lasting two or three years, capture about a quarter of higher education enrollment in the world and can play a key role enhancing workforce skills. In this paper, we estimate the program-level contribution of SCPs to student academic and labor market… more →
“All Students Matter:” The Place of Race in Discourse on Student Debt in a Federal Higher Education Policymaking Process
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceWe used Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the racial discourse within recent attempts to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. Specifically, we interrogated congressional markup hearings to understand how members frame student debt and the racialized dynamics embedded within. Our findings… more →
Human versus Machine: Do college advisors outperform a machine-learning algorithm in predicting student enrollment?
Tags: Higher education, EquityPrediction algorithms are used across public policy domains to aid in the identification of at-risk individuals and guide service provision or resource allocation. While growing research has investigated concerns of algorithmic bias, much less research has compared algorithmically-driven… more →
Advancing a Framework of Racialized Administrative Burdens in Higher Education Policy
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceMany policies in higher education are intended to improve college access and degree completion, yet often those policies fall short of their aims by making it difficult for prospective or current college students to access benefits for which they are eligible. Barriers that inhibit access to… 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 →
College-Major Choice to College-then-Major Choice: Experimental Evidence from Chinese College Admissions Reforms
One of the most important mechanism design policies in college admissions is to let students choose a college major sequentially (college-then-major choice) or jointly (college-major choice). In the context of the Chinese meta-major reforms that transition from college-major choice to college-… more →
Who’s Matched Up? Access to Same-Race Instructors in Higher Education
Despite recent evidence on the benefits of same-race instructor matching in K-12 and higher education, research has yet to document the incidence of same-race matching in the postsecondary sector. That is, how likely are racially minoritized college students to ever experience an instructor of… more →
Assessing Atlanta’s Placed-Based College Scholarship
Tags: Higher education, PovertyWe investigate whether and how Achieve Atlanta’s college scholarship and associated services impact college enrollment, persistence, and graduation among Atlanta Public School graduates experiencing low household income. Qualifying for the scholarship of up to $5,000/year does not… more →
Variation in broadband access among undergraduate populations across the United States
Topics: Families and CommunitiesIncreasing numbers of students require internet access to pursue their undergraduate degrees, yet broadband access remains inequitable across student populations. Furthermore, surveys that currently show differences in access by student demographics or location typically do so at high levels of… more →
Opening the Black Box of College Major Choice: Evidence from an Information Intervention
We study the importance of job-related and non-job-related factors in students’ college major choices. Using a staggered intervention that allows us to provide students information about many different aspects of majors and to compare the magnitudes of the effects of each piece of information,… more →
Mandating Multiple Measures and Encouraging Student Supports: Evaluating a New Approach to Developmental Education in California’s Community Colleges
Tags: Higher education, EfficacyAB705 is a landmark higher education policy that has changed approaches to developmental/remedial education in the California Community College system. We study one district that implemented reforms by placing most students in transfer-level math/English courses and encouraging enrollment in… more →
Are Students Time Constrained? Course Load, GPA, and Failing
Tags: Higher education, MotivationGiven the simultaneous rise in time-to-graduation and college GPA, it may be that students reduce their course load to improve their performance. Yet, evidence to date only shows increased course loads increase GPA. We provide a mathematical model showing many unobservable factors -- beyond… more →
Not the Great Equalizer? Local Economic Mobility and Inequality Effects for the Establishment of U.S. Universities
Topics: Families and CommunitiesWe exploit historical natural experiments to test whether universities increase economic mobility and equality. We use "runner-up’" counties that were strongly considered to become university sites but were not selected for as-good-as-random reasons as counterfactuals for university counties.… more →
Heterogeneity in Labor Market Returns to Master’s Degrees: Evidence from Ohio
Graduate education is among the fastest growing segments of the U.S. higher educational system. This paper provides up-to-date causal evidence on labor market returns to Master’s degrees and examines heterogeneity in the returns by field area, student demographics and initial labor market… more →
Keep Me In, Coach: The Short- and Long-Term Effects of Targeted Academic Coaching
To boost college graduation rates, policymakers often advocate for academic supports such as coaching or mentoring. Proactive and intensive coaching interventions are effective, but are costly and difficult to scale. We evaluate a relatively lower-cost group coaching program targeted at first-… more →
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 →
Student Selection into an Income Share Agreement
Tags: Higher educationFinancing college expenses through an income share agreement (ISA) is an arrangement where the student agrees to pay a fixed percentage of future earned income for a designated period of time in exchange for college funding. Using administrative and survey data for all eligible applicants to a… more →