Post-secondary education
The Role of Course Delivery Modality in Dual Enrollment
Dual enrollment, or college courses offered in high school, can be delivered using a variety of modalities. Conducted in North Carolina, this study uses a statewide dataset to examine participation in and outcomes for three different delivery modalities for general academic courses and Career… more →
The Labor Market Value of Community College Bachelor’s Degrees: Initial Evidence from a Resume Audit Study in Early Childhood Education
Community colleges are more financially, academically, and geographically accessible than four-year colleges. Despite most community college students intending to earn a bachelor’s degree, few transfer to a four-year institution and even fewer earn bachelor’s degrees, leading policymakers to… more →
Resegregating the Academy: How Anti-DEI Politics Dismantle Faculty Racial Equity Infrastructure
Since 2021, state legislatures and then the federal government have moved to dismantle programs and offices built over seventy-five years to reduce barriers for racially marginalized people in American higher education—losses largely examined in scholarship and media piecemeal, one policy or… more →
Does Relative Performance Feedback Improve Academic Outcomes? Evidence from a Randomised Controlled Trial in a Spanish University
The effects of relative performance feedback on student achievement remain contested in the economics of education literature. Some studies find that providing students with information about their standing relative to peers improves academic outcomes, while others show negative effects driven… more →
Do Neighbors Shape the Sticker Price? Spatial Competition and State Funding in Cost of Attendance Reporting Over Time
Federal law requires U.S. postsecondary institutions to publish a Cost of Attendance (COA) that serves as the legal ceiling on a student's federal financial aid eligibility, yet off-campus living costs are estimated by institutions at their own discretion, with no standardized methodology or… more →
First Impressions Matter: Instructor Gender and Women’s Persistence in Economics
Using near-random assignment of students to instructors in introductory economics at a broad-access public university, we study how instructor gender affects women’s persistence in economics. Female instructors close roughly 40 percent of the gender gap in advanced economics course-taking, with… more →
Success Begets Success: The Dynamic Treatment Effects of Financial Aid Tournaments
Financial aid programs in higher education vary widely in design, including how aid is structured and the timing of provision. This paper studies the impact of financial aid provided as a repeated tournament and its dynamic treatment effects. Pooling administrative data that captures 32% of all… more →
Meeting People Where They Are: Experimental Evidence on Embedded Supports, Service Use, and Educational Outcomes
Many public services suffer from persistently low take-up despite high potential returns. A growing body of evidence suggests that information alone does little to close this gap; instead, hassle costs and default access points may be binding constraints on utilization. We test whether… more →
Does Coursework Matter? Uncovering the Role of Skills in the Returns to College
The continuing shift of the U.S. economy toward a high-skill base has increased the demand for college-educated workers. To understand how higher education prepares students for this evolving economy, a large body of literature in labor economics has focused on the causes and consequences of… more →
Unequal and Persistent Effects of Student Loan Policy: Evidence from Parent PLUS Reforms
Federal student loan policy is designed as a uniform intervention, yet institutions differ in their reliance on specific sources of financing. We study how these differences shape the transmission of policy shocks using two reforms to the Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students (Parent PLUS)… more →
The Impact of the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard Decision on Undergraduate Demographics
The 2023 Supreme Court decision Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (SFFA) effectively ended the explicit consideration of race in college admissions. This paper examines the impact of SFFA on the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic composition of undergraduate… more →
Student and Faculty Same-Race Matching at Research Universities
Racial disparities in college persistence and completion remain substantial, yet relatively little evidence exists on how student–faculty interactions contribute to these gaps in research universities. This study examines the prevalence and consequences of student–faculty same-race matching… more →
Supporting Females in STEM: Evidence on Student-Instructor Gender-Matching in 4-Year Research Universities in Texas
Despite progress in overall educational attainment, female students remain underrepresented in STEM fields. One proposed mechanism for improving female students' outcomes is exposure to same-gender faculty, yet evidence on both the prevalence and impacts of student–instructor gender matching in… more →
Understanding the Construction of Compliance with Anti-"DEI" Legislation
Despite documented harms of anti-“DEI” laws, little is known about the mechanisms that shape implementation to give these laws expanded and suppressive meaning. Guided by legal mobilization theory and repressive legalism, we examine how institutional actors implement legislation restricting… more →
Staffing and Resource Allocation in College Access Reform: How Dual Credit Shifts Educational Costs
Objective. Dual credit (DC), or dual enrollment, is college-level coursework that confers credit towards both high school graduation and a postsecondary degree. As DC has grown rapidly across the country, this study provides needed evidence about how these courses shift… more →
State Merit Aid: Effects on College Enrollment, Labor Market Outcomes, and Government Revenue
This paper evaluates long-run effects of state merit aid programs that subsidize in-state college attendance. Using national survey data on college enrollment and U.S. Census data, I exploit staggered program adoption across states. Merit aid shifts students from out-of-state to in-state… more →
Geographic and Community Influences on College Savings: Evidence from the Universe of Pennsylvania 529 Account Holders
Families’ college savings behaviors are important determinants of students’ postsecondary enrollment and degree attainment. While prior work has examined how economic and sociological aspects of families shape savings behaviors, no study has examined how geographic or community-level factors… more →
Unpacking the Long-Term Impact of Holistic Supports for Community College Students
This paper presents longer-term findings from a randomized controlled trial of One Million Degrees (OMD), a comprehensive support program for community college students in the Chicago metro area that provides financial, academic, personal, and professional assistance. Results from an initial… more →
The Effect of Merit-Based Free Community College
Free community college is often promoted as a way to expand access and reduce student debt, but may have unintended consequences if it reduces bachelor’s degree completion for students diverted from better resourced four-year universities. By examining a meritbased free community college program… more →
"Feel" as a Determinant of College Choice: Evidence from Campus Tour Weather
The feeling or impression that students get about enrolling in a particular college may be an important determinant of their college application decision. Combining institutional records on college campus tour participants over the last decade with hourly weather information, we leverage tour… more →