Higher education
Advisor Value-Added and Student Outcomes: Evidence from Randomly Assigned College Advisors
This paper provides the first causal evidence on the impact of college advisor quality on student outcomes. To do so, we exploit a unique setting where students are randomly assigned to faculty advisors during their first year of college. We find that higher advisor value-added (VA)… more →
Impacts of state aid for non-traditional students on educational and labor market outcomes
Up to three-fourths of college students can be classified as “non-traditional”, yet whether typical policy interventions improves their education and labor market outcomes is understudied. I use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the impacts of a state financial aid program aimed… more →
Parental Occupational Choice and Children’s Entry into a STEM Field
We explore the intergenerational occupational transmission between parents and their children as it pertains to entry into the STEM field. Using the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, we study student’s aspirations to work in a STEM field and eventual STEM education and employment. We show… more →
Female Science Advisors and the STEM Gender Gap
In an effort to reduce the STEM gender gap, policymakers often propose providing women with close mentoring by female scientists. This is based on the idea that female scientists might act as role models and counteract negative gender stereotypes that are pervasive in science fields. However, as… more →
Conceptualizing Racial Segregation in Higher Education: Examining Within- and Between-Sector Trends in California Public Higher Education, 1994-2014
Conceptualizing and measuring levels of segregation in higher education is difficult as both vertical and horizontal sorting is prevalent and patterns vary across racial groups. In this paper, we measure various trends in racial segregation in California for 20 years. We find that the most… more →
Can Information Widen Socioeconomic Gaps in Postsecondary Aspirations? How College Costs and Returns Affect Parents’ Preferences for their Children
To estimate whether information can close socioeconomic gaps in parents’ aspirations for their child’s postsecondary education, we administer a four-armed survey experiment to a nationally representative sample of U.S. parents. After respondents estimate costs of and returns to further education… more →
Washington’s College Bound Scholarship Program and its Effect on College Entry, Persistence, and Completion
Indiana, Oklahoma, and Washington have programs designed to address college enrollment and completion gaps by offering a promise of state-based college financial aid to low-income middle school students in exchange for making a pledge to do well in high school, be a good citizen, not be… more →
Virtual Advising for High-Achieving High School Students
We examine whether virtual advising – college counseling using technology to communicate remotely – increases postsecondary enrollment in selective colleges. We test this approach using a sample of approximately 16,000 high-achieving, low- and middle-income students identified by the College… more →
What Limits College Success? A review and further analysis of Holzer and Baum’s ‘Making College Work’
Holzer and Baum’s recent book, ‘Making College Work: Pathways to Success for Disadvantaged Students,’ provides an excellent up-to-date review of higher education. My review first summarizes its key themes: 1) who gains from college and why?
College Now...or Later: Measuring the Effects of Dual Enrollment on Postsecondary Access and Success
Research suggests that earning college credits in high school increases the likelihood of postsecondary progress and graduation. In this study, we measure the impact of dual enrollment in high school and college courses through the College Now (CN) program on college enrollment for students in… more →
Nudging at Scale: Experimental Evidence from FAFSA Completion Campaigns
Kelli A. Bird, Benjamin L. Castleman, Jeffrey T. Denning, Joshua Goodman, Cait Lamberton, Kelly Ochs Rosinger.Tags: Higher education, Student supportsDo nudge interventions that have generated positive impacts at a local level maintain efficacy when scaled state or nationwide? What specific mechanisms explain the positive impacts of promising smaller-scale nudges? We investigate, through two randomized controlled trials, the impact of a… more →
Ready or Not? California's Early Assessment Program and the Transition to College
In this paper we investigate the impact of a statewide program aimed at better aligning K-12 to higher education and improving college readiness. We replicate an earlier study focused on the effects of this program at one campus by employing detailed administrative data on the census of… more →
Effects of the Flipped Classroom: Evidence from a Randomized Trial
Topics: Student LearningIn a flipped classroom, an increasingly popular pedagogical model, students view a video lecture at home and work on exercises with the instructor during class time. Advocates of the flipped classroom claim the practice not only improves student achievement, but also ameliorates the achievement… more →
The Value of Using Early-Career Earnings Data in the College Scorecard to Guide College Choices
Policymakers are increasingly including early-career earnings data in consumer-facing college search tools to help students and families make more informed post-secondary education decisions. We offer new evidence on the degree to which existing college-specific earnings data equips consumers… more →
How college credit in high school impacts postsecondary course-taking: the role of AP exams
This paper uses Advanced Placement (AP) exams to examine how receiving college credit in high school alters students’ subsequent human capital investment. Using data from one large state, I link high school students to postsecondary transcripts from in-state, public institutions and estimate… more →
Nudges Don’t Work When the Benefits Are Ambiguous: Evidence from a High-Stakes Education Program
Tags: Higher educationThe Post-9/11 GI Bill allows service members to transfer generous education benefits to a dependent. We run a large scale experiment that encourages service members to consider the transfer option among a population that includes individuals for whom the transfer benefits are clear and… more →
Nudges Don’t Work When the Benefits Are Ambiguous: Evidence from a High-Stakes Education Program
Dual-credit courses expose high school students to college-level content and provide the opportunity to earn college credits, in part to smooth the transition to college. With the Tennessee Department of Education, we conduct the first randomized controlled trial of the effects of dual-credit… more →
The Remarkable Unresponsiveness of College Students to Nudging And What We Can Learn from It
We present results from a five-year effort to design promising online and text-message interventions to improve college achievement through several distinct channels. From a sample of nearly 25,000 students across three different campuses, we find some improvement from coaching-based… more →
Effects of the shift to English-only instruction on college outcomes: Evidence from Central Asia
English-only college education in non-English speaking countries is a rapidly growing phenomenon that has been dubbed as the most important trend in higher education internationalization. Despite worldwide popularity, there is little empirical evidence about how the transition to English-only… more →
The Effect of Reduced Student Loan Borrowing on Academic Performance and Default: Evidence from a Loan Counseling Experiment
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceTags: Higher education, EquityStudent loan borrowing for higher education has emerged as a top policy concern. Policy makers at the institutional, state, and federal levels have pursued a variety of strategies to inform students about loan origination processes and how much a student has cumulatively borrowed, and to provide… more →