There to Learn
Foreign Students in College and the Supply of STEM Graduates
Massimo Anelli, Kevin Shih & Kevin Williams
Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do foreign students affect the likelihood domestic students obtain a STEM degree and occupation? Using administrative student records from a U.S. university, we exploit idiosyncratic variation in the share of foreign classmates in introductory math classes and find that foreign classmates displace domestic students from STEM majors and occupations. However, displaced students gravitate towards high earning Social Science majors, so that their expected earnings are not penalized. We explore several mechanisms. Results indicate that displacement is concentrated in classes where foreign classmates possess weak English language ability, suggesting that diminished in-class communication and social interactions might play an important role.
Rental Housing, Household Sorting, and Academic Achievement
Tom Mayock & Kelly Vosters
University of North Carolina Working Paper, February 2022
Abstract:
The stock of single-family rental units zoned for high-performing public schools surged following the Great Recession. Using a unique dataset of linked student-housing-unit records and a fixed effects research design, we show that increasing the supply of rental housing zoned for high-performing schools provides a pathway for economically disadvantaged children to attend high-performing schools. Exploiting the exogenous variation in the allocation of single-family rental units across areas zoned for different quality schools, we find that residential moves induced by the growing rental supply lead to improved school quality for movers. Further, the higher school quality leads to substantial achievement gains.
The Power of Certainty: Experimental Evidence on the Effective Design of Free Tuition Programs
Elizabeth Burland et al.
NBER Working Paper, March 2022
Abstract:
Proposed "free college" policies vary widely in design. The simplest approach sets tuition to zero for everyone. More targeted approaches limit free tuition to those who successfully demonstrate need through an application process. We experimentally test the effects of these two models on the schooling decisions of low-income students. An unconditional free tuition offer from a large public university substantially increases application and enrollment rates. A free tuition offer contingent on proof of need has a much smaller effect on application and none on enrollment. The results suggest students place a high value on financial certainty when making schooling decisions.
“You Selling?”: Snack Sales and the Construction of Deviance in a High School
Karlyn Gorski
Youth & Society, forthcoming
Abstract:
Youths’ affinity for snack foods is well-documented; in various contexts, they sell chips, candy, and other goods. Adults may frame such sales as either entrepreneurial or deviant, which can contribute to positive youth development (on one hand) or cycles of disengagement and criminalization (on the other). Drawing on ethnographic and interview data from Hamilton High School, I show how adults’ criminalization of snack sales led the activity to more closely resemble that which they feared: drug sales. Snack sales constitute one way in which youth exercise agency in the face of broad institutional control, leading some to challenge the legitimacy of the school overall. These findings represent a case of how youth experience “criminalized childhoods” in a school context.
Public School Funding, School Quality, and Adult Crime
Jason Baron, Joshua Hyman & Brittany Vasquez
NBER Working Paper, March 2022
Abstract:
This paper asks whether improving the quality of public schools can be an effective long-run crime-prevention strategy in the U.S. Specifically, we examine the effect of school quality improvements early in children's lives on the likelihood that they are arrested as adults. We exploit quasi-experimental variation in school quality due to increases in public school funding, leveraging two natural experiments in Michigan and a novel administrative dataset linking the universe of Michigan public school students to adult criminal justice records. The first research design exploits variation in operating expenditures due to Michigan's 1994 school finance reform, Proposal A. The second design exploits variation in capital spending by leveraging close school district capital bond elections in a regression discontinuity framework. In both cases, we find that students exposed to additional funding during elementary school were substantially less likely to be arrested in adulthood. We show that the Marginal Value of Public Funds of improving school quality (via increases in funding) is greater than one, even when considering only the crime-reducing benefits.
Optimal Allocation of Seats in the Presence of Peer Effects: Evidence from a Job Training Program
Isaac Opper, Matthew Baird & John Engberg
Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We model optimal treatment assignment in programs with a limited number of seats and study how the presence of peer effects impact the optimal allocation rule. We then use data from an RCT to show evidence that there are large peer effects in the context of job training for disadvantaged adults in the United States. Finally, we combine the model and the empirics to show that the program would have had a much greater impact if the assignment choices had accounted for the peer effects.
The Education-Innovation Gap
Barbara Biasi & Song Ma
NBER Working Paper, March 2022
Abstract:
This paper documents differences across higher-education courses in the coverage of frontier knowledge. Comparing the text of 1.7M syllabi and 20M academic articles, we construct the "education-innovation gap," a syllabus’s relative proximity to old and new knowledge. We show that courses differ greatly in the extent to which they cover frontier knowledge. More selective and better funded schools, and those enrolling socio-economically advantaged students, teach more frontier knowledge. Instructors play a big role in shaping course content; research-active instructors teach more frontier knowledge. Students from schools teaching more frontier knowledge are more likely to complete a PhD, produce more patents, and earn more after graduation.
Can Standardizing Applicant High School and Neighborhood Information Help to Diversify Selective Colleges?
Zachary Mabel et al.
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many selective colleges consider the backgrounds of applicants to improve equity in admissions. However, this information is usually not available for all applicants. We examine whether the chances of admission and enrollment changed after 43 colleges gained access to a new tool that standardizes information on educational disadvantage for all applicants. Applicants from the most challenging school and neighborhood backgrounds experienced a 5-percentage point increase in the probability of admission in the year of adoption relative to similar applicants in the previous year. The tool did not alter the probability of enrollment as a function of applicant challenge level in the full sample, but positive changes are concentrated among applicants to institutions that used the tool to allocate financial aid.
Progressivity of Pricing at US Public Universities
Emily Cook & Sarah Turner
NBER Working Paper, March 2022
Abstract:
Substantial increases in public university tuition often raise concerns about college affordability. But assessment of the impacts on low- and moderate-income families requires consideration of whether net tuition — tuition less grant aid — has increased commensurately. This paper describes recent shifts in net tuition by family income and institution type and assesses the role of changes in state funding in generating these shifts. Using data reported by universities on net tuition paid by students from different family income levels, we find that public research universities have increasingly shifted to high-tuition, high-aid pricing. From 2012 to 2018, net tuition fell by far more than would have been predicted by the growth in state appropriations, while tuition levels continued to rise, albeit at a slower rate than in the prior years. The increased progressivity in pricing, particularly among research universities, cannot be explained by changes in state appropriations.
Teachers’ Base Salary and Districts’ Academic Performance: Evidence From National Data
Emma García & Eunice Han
SAGE Open, March 2022
Abstract:
This paper examines the relationship between teacher pay and students’ academic achievement, using nationally representative, district-level linked data between districts’ performance on standardized tests and average teacher base salary. By employing state fixed effects and multilevel mixed effects models, we find that both mathematics and English test scores are significantly higher in districts that offer higher base salaries to teachers, compared with those in districts with a lower teacher base salary. We also find that higher teacher base salaries reduce achievement gap between white and black students, as well as between white and Hispanic students, by raising test scores more for those minority students.
Self-Interest in Public Service: Evidence from School Board Election
Stephen Billings et al.
NBER Working Paper, February 2022
Abstract:
In this paper, we show that the election of a new school board member causes home values in their neighborhood to rise. This increase is identified using narrowly-decided contests and is driven by non-Democratic members, whose neighborhoods appreciate about 4% on average relative to those of losing candidates. We find that student test scores in the neighborhood public schools of non-Democratic winners also relatively increase, but this effect is driven by changing student composition, including via the manipulation of attendance zones, rather than improvements in school quality (as measured by test score value-added). Notably, we detect no differential changes when comparing neighborhood or scholastic outcomes between winning and losing Democratic school board candidates. These results suggest that partisan affiliation is correlated with private motivations for seeking public office.