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Costs on the Mind: The Influence of the Financial Burden of College on Academic Performance and Cognitive Functioning
Mesmin Destin & Ryan Svoboda
Research in Higher Education, May 2018, Pages 302–324
Abstract:
The current studies test the hypothesis that the financial burden of college can initiate a psychological process that has a negative influence on academic performance for students at selective colleges and universities. Prior studies linking high college costs and student loans to academic outcomes have not been grounded within relevant social psychological theory regarding how and when the financial burden of college can influence students’ psychological and cognitive processes. We test the hypothesis that the salient financial burden of college impairs students’ cognitive functioning, especially when it creates an identity conflict or perceived barrier to reaching a student’s desired financially successful future. First, we use longitudinal data from 28 selective colleges and universities to establish that students who accumulate student loan debt within these contexts are less likely to graduate from college because student loan debt predicts a decline in grades over time, even when controlling for factors related to socioeconomic status and prior achievement. Then, in an experiment, we advance research in this area with a direct, causal test of the proposed psychological process. An experimental manipulation that brings high college costs to mind impairs students’ cognitive functioning, but only when those thoughts create an identity conflict or a perceived barrier to reaching a student’s desired financially successful future.
The Bad End of the Bargain?: Revisiting the Relationship between Collective Bargaining Agreements and Student Achievement
Bradley Marianno & Katharine Strunk
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper revisits the relationship between teacher collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) and student achievement. Using a district-level dataset of California teacher CBAs that includes measures of overall and subarea contract strength linked to district-level panel data, we build on prior work by controlling for unobserved fixed and time-varying confounders. This study demonstrates that naïve pooled OLS estimates of student achievement on overall CBA strength are larger and more negative than lagged achievement and within-district estimates, signifying a negative bias in the naïve levels models. When controlling for time invariant and time-varying unobservables, the relationship between CBA strength and student achievement is persistently negative and small, or null, but never significantly positive. This relationship extends to specific CBA subareas and to subgroups of students. These findings have important implications for new reforms designed to weaken teacher collective bargaining rights.
College for All, Degrees for Few: For-Profit Colleges and Socioeconomic Differences in Degree Attainment
Dafna Gelbgiser
Social Forces, June 2018, Pages 1785–1824
Abstract:
The recent expansion of for-profit colleges in US higher education has ignited much debate over the potential contributions, and limitations, of profit-maximizing educational businesses to socioeconomic inequality. For-profit colleges have a strong economic incentive to retain students, and can offer innovative services in order to compete with more established institutions. But for-profit colleges may also seek to increase revenues in ways that are not beneficial for student outcomes. Using detailed longitudinal information on a nationally representative sample of recent high school students (ELS 2002), this paper provides the first comprehensive and systematic assessment of the effect of attendance at for-profit colleges on socioeconomic inequality in student outcomes, measured as the attainment of bachelor’s degrees. Results from logit models and weighted regression technique indicate that low-SES students that attend for-profit colleges are substantially less likely to earn a bachelor’s degree than observationally similar students that attend non-profit open admission colleges. By contrast, enrollment at for-profit colleges has little bearing on the likelihood of high-SES students to earn a bachelor’s degree. These findings suggest that for-profit colleges contribute to the maintenance of socioeconomic disadvantage, in that low-SES students with mobility aspirations are paying more for their education and yet are less likely to reap the benefits of their investment.
Supplement or Supplant? Estimating the Impact of State Lottery Earmarks on Higher Education Funding
Elizabeth Bell, Wesley Wehde & Madeleine Stucky
Education Finance and Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the wake of declining state support for higher education, many state leaders have adopted lottery earmark policies, which designate lottery revenue to higher education budgets as an alternative funding mechanism. However, despite the ubiquity of lottery earmarks for higher education, it remains unclear whether this new source of revenue serves to supplement or supplant state funding for higher education. In this manuscript, we estimate the impact of designating lottery earmark funding to higher education on state appropriations and state financial aid levels in a difference-in-differences design for the years 1990-2009. Main findings indicate that lottery earmark policies are associated with a 5% increase in higher education appropriations, and a 135% increase in merit-based financial aid. However, lottery earmarks are also associated with a decrease in need-based financial aid of approximately 12%. These findings have serious distributional implications that should be considered when state lawmakers adopt lottery earmark policies for higher education.
Does a Successful Randomized Experiment Lead to Successful Policy? Project Challenge and What Happened in Tennessee After Project STAR
Paul von Hippel & Chandi Wagner
University of Texas Working Paper, March 2018
Abstract:
A growing number of policy makers request research evidence before making policy decisions. Yet the evidence, when provided, may have little impact on policy. In this article, we revisit how Tennessee handled class size policy in 1984-93. The conventional history is an inspiring narrative of evidence-based policy. The state funded a randomized experiment (Project STAR), which showed that reducing class sizes to 15 could raise test scores. It then funded class size reduction in the poorest school districts (Project Challenge), achieving similar effects. Finally, the state reduced class sizes statewide (under the Basic Education Program). Our revised history paints a less inspiring picture. Though Project STAR was exemplary, Project Challenge was not. Evidence from district report cards suggest that the districts targeted by Project Challenge did not reduce class sizes and did not raise test scores. After Project Challenge, Tennessee’s Basic Education Program did reduce class sizes statewide, but the reduction was token, taking average student-teacher ratios from 26 down to 25. Later other states reduced class sizes, citing evidence from Project STAR, but the reductions and contexts differed from those in Project STAR, and effects were disappointing. If evidence is to improve social outcomes, it must be better integrated into policy decisions.
Educational Test Scores, Education Spending, and Productivity in Public Education: National Trends and Evidence Across States and Over Time, 1990 – 2015
John Garen & Rex Bray
University of Kentucky Working Paper, January 2018
Abstract:
We examine national trends in educational funding, test score outcomes, and productivity as well as variations in funding and test scores over time and across states to assess how changes in educational spending are (or are not) related to changes in educational test score outcomes for states. National trends show small increases in test scores, large increases in educational funding (until the last recession), and a continued fall in educational productivity. The cross-state, over time analysis indicates a statistically significant but very small association of state funding to test scores; so small that large changes in funding have little effect on scores. This is consistent with the continued decline in educational productivity. We also find similar results for black students, implying that the increased funding has not served to reduce racial inequality. We suggest that the continued decline in productivity of public schools adds further reason to question the ability of non-competitive, public organizations to improve educational performance and to look for alternatives that embrace or emulate private-sector, competitive organizations.
Changing Students Minds and Achievement in Mathematics: The Impact of a Free Online Student Course
Jo Boaler et al.
Frontiers in Education, April 2018
Abstract:
This study reports on the impact of a “massive, open, online course” (MOOC) designed to change students' ideas about mathematics and their own potential and improve their mathematics achievement. Many students hold damaging fixed mindsets, believing that their intelligence is unchangeable. When students shift to a growth mindset (believing that their intelligence is malleable), their achievement increases. This study of a MOOC intervention differs from previous mindset research in three ways (1) the intervention was delivered through a free online course with the advantage of being scalable nationwide (2) the intervention infused mindset messages into mathematics, specifically targeting students' beliefs about mathematics (3) the research was conducted with a teacher randomized controlled design to estimate its effects. Results show that the treatment group who took the MOOC reported more positive beliefs about math, engaged more deeply in math in class, and achieved at significantly higher levels on standardized mathematics assessments.
Financial Aid and College Persistence: Do Student Loans Help or Hurt?
Serge Herzog
Research in Higher Education, May 2018, Pages 273–301
Abstract:
Using data from two freshmen cohorts at a public research university (N = 3730), this study examines the relationship between loan aid and second-year enrollment persistence. Applying a counterfactual analytical framework that relies on propensity score (PS) weighting and matching to address selection bias associated with treatment status, the study estimates that loan aid exerts a significant negative effect on persistence for students from low-income background (i.e., Pell eligible), and those taking up high amounts of loans in order to meet total cost of attendance, including students who exhausted the available amount of subsidized loan aid. However, no significant incremental effect associated with unsubsidized loan aid, net of subsidized loan aid, could be detected. The estimated effect of loan aid on persistence controls for first-year academic experience and takes into account 26 factors related to loan selection and persistence in order to match students with loan aid to a counterfactual case in covariate adjusted regression. Comparison with results from non-matched-sample analysis suggests selection bias may mask the negative effect of loans detected with matched-sample estimation. Validity of covariates determining the loan selection process and criteria for acceptable balance in the matched data are discussed, and implications for future research are addressed.
Improving College Instruction Through Incentives
Andy Brownback & Sally Sadoff
University of California Working Paper, March 2018
Abstract:
In a field experiment, we test the impact of performance-based incentives for community college instructors. We estimate that instructor incentives improve student performance on objective course exams by 0.2 standard deviations, increase course grades by 0.1 standard deviations, and reduce course dropout rates by 17%. The largest effects are among part-time adjunct instructors. To test for potential complementarities, we also examine the impact of instructor incentives in conjunction with student incentives and find no evidence that the incentives are more effective in combination. Our instructor incentives are framed as losses and distributed in the form of upfront bonuses that instructors pay back at the end of the semester if they do not meet performance targets. We elicit instructors' contract preferences and find that, at baseline, instructors prefer to work under gain-framed contracts with rewards distributed at the end of the semester. However, after experiencing the loss-framed incentives, instructors significantly increase their preferences for them.
Telling better stories: Competence-building narrative themes increase adolescent persistence and academic achievement
Brady Jones, Mesmin Destin & Dan McAdams
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, May 2018, Pages 76-80
Abstract:
The current studies investigate the power of competence-building narrative themes in adolescents' accounts of failures and successes to improve school outcomes. Study 1 (N = 62) shows a positive association between competence-building themes (agency in successes, redemption in failures) and adolescents' goal persistence and grades. In Study 2 (N = 183), a field experiment randomly assigned a treatment group of ninth-graders to include these competence-building themes in accounts of successes and failures. Compared to the control group, they reported increased persistence several weeks after the study and a better trajectory of academic achievement through the third quarter of the school year. In both studies, persistence mediated the association with grades. Further analyses revealed that these effects faded by the end of the school year. This study demonstrates the power and limitations of narrative to influence academic behaviors.
Changing How Literacy Is Taught: Evidence on Synthetic Phonics
Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally & Martina Viarengo
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, May 2018, Pages 217-241
Abstract:
A significant number of people have very low levels of literacy in many OECD countries. This paper studies a national change in policy and practice in England that refocused the teaching of reading around "synthetic phonics." This was a low-cost intervention that targeted the pedagogy of existing teachers. We evaluate the pilot and first phase of the national rollout. While strong initial effects tend to fade out on average, they persist for those with children with a higher initial propensity to struggle with reading. As a result, this program helped narrow the gap between disadvantaged pupils and other groups.
Exposure to academic fields and college major choice
Hans Fricke, Jeffrey Grogger & Andreas Steinmayr
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study investigates how exposure to a field of study influences students’ major choices. If students have incomplete information, exposure potentially helps them to learn about the scope of a field as well as how well the field matches their interest and abilities. We exploit a natural experiment where university students have to write a research paper in business, economics, or law during their first year before they choose a major. Due to oversubscription of business papers, the field of the paper is assigned quasi-randomly. We find that writing in economics raises the probability of majoring in economics by 2.7 percentage points. We show further that this effect varies across subfields: the effect is driven by assignment to topics less typical of the public's perception of the field of economics, suggesting students learn through exposure that the field is broader than they thought.
Improved Executive Function and Science Achievement for At-Risk Middle School Girls in an Aerobic Fitness Program
Jennifer Gatz, Angela Kelly & Sheri Clark
Journal of Early Adolescence, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study explored the effects of a middle school physical activity intervention for adolescent girls on the executive functioning involved in science learning. The girls, ages 11 to 14, were at risk for low self-esteem, sedentary lifestyle, and poor health outcomes. Executive function stems from interdependent cognitive control processes that influence goal setting and information processing, which complement higher order thinking required for acquiring scientific process skills. A 20-week informal triathlon training program served as the intervention for the treatment girls (n = 29). The comparison group of girls (n = 30) was randomly drawn from a matched sample of students of a similar demographic. Mean comparisons, ANCOVA, and Roy-Bargmann stepdown analysis were used to measure outcomes. The intervention contributed to significant improvement in several executive functions and science achievement. These results suggest that an afterschool program with a physical fitness component may improve the executive functions involved in science learning.
Can UTeach? Assessing the Relative Effectiveness of STEM Teachers
Ben Backes et al.
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
UTeach is a well-known, university-based program designed to increase the number of high-quality STEM teachers in the workforce. Despite substantial investment and rapid program diffusion, there is little evidence about the effectiveness of UTeach graduates. Using administrative data from the state of Texas, we measure the impact of having a UTeach teacher on student test scores in math and science in middle schools and high schools. We find that students taught by UTeach teachers perform significantly better on end-of-grade tests in math and end-of-course tests in math and science by 8% to 15% of a standard deviation on the test, depending on grade and subject.
Effects of a school readiness intervention on hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis functioning and school adjustment for children in foster care
Alice Graham et al.
Development and Psychopathology, May 2018, Pages 651-664
Abstract:
Maltreated children in foster care are at high risk for dysregulated hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis functioning and educational difficulties. The present study examined the effects of a short-term school readiness intervention on HPA axis functioning in response to the start of kindergarten, a critical transition marking entry to formal schooling, and whether altered HPA axis functioning influenced children's school adjustment. Compared to a foster care comparison group, children in the intervention group showed a steeper diurnal cortisol slope on the first day of school, a pattern previously observed among nonmaltreated children. A steeper first day of school diurnal cortisol slope predicted teacher ratings of better school adjustment (i.e., academic performance, appropriate classroom behaviors, and engagement in learning) in the fall of kindergarten. Furthermore, the children's HPA axis response to the start of school mediated the effect of the intervention on school adjustment. These findings support the potential for ameliorative effects of interventions targeting critical transitional periods, such as the transition of formal schooling. This school readiness intervention appears to influence stress neurobiology, which in turn facilitates positive engagement with the school environment and better school adjustment in children who have experienced significant early adversity.