Getting educated
A Big Fish in a Small Pond: Ability Rank and Human Capital Investment
Benjamin Elsner & Ingo Isphording
Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We study the impact of a student's ordinal rank in a high school cohort on educational attainment several years later. To identify a causal effect, we compare multiple cohorts within the same school, exploiting idiosyncratic variation in cohort composition. We find that a student's ordinal rank significantly affects educational outcomes later in life. Students with a higher rank are significantly more likely to finish high school and attend college. Exploring potential channels, we find that students with a higher rank have higher expectations about their future career, as well as a higher perceived intelligence.
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Weighting Recent Performance to Improve College and Labor Market Outcomes
George Bulman
Journal of Public Economics, February 2017, Pages 97-108
Abstract:
There is a great deal of policy interest in reducing college dropout rates, increasing graduation rates, and improving labor market outcomes. To this end, individual colleges and state university systems use high school grade point averages and class rankings in an effort to offer admission and scholarships to students who are most likely to achieve long-run success. However, a significant fraction of students exhibit steep positive or negative performance trends during high school. This study shows that academic performance in later grades is given no greater weight in admissions but is the best predictor of college and labor market outcomes, greatly exceeding prior grades and entrance exam scores. Placing greater weight on later grades and extending application deadlines to allow the consideration of 12th grade performance is shown to significantly alter which students are admitted to college and to improve their expected long-run outcomes. Importantly, weighting recent performance does not appear to affect college diversity. Evidence is presented that the predictive power of later grades is driven primarily by students who experience large negative performance trajectories during high school.
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Does Money Matter in the Long Run? Effects of School Spending on Educational Attainment
Joshua Hyman
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper measures the effect of increased primary school spending on students' college enrollment and completion. Using student-level panel administrative data, I exploit variation in the school funding formula imposed by Michigan's 1994 school finance reform, Proposal A. Students exposed to $1,000 (10 percent) more spending were 3 percentage points (7 percent) more likely to enroll in college and 2.3 percentage points (11 percent) more likely to earn a postsecondary degree. The effects were concentrated among districts that were urban and suburban, lower-poverty, and higher-achieving at baseline. Districts targeted the marginal dollar toward schools serving less-poor populations within the district.
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Why Selective Colleges Should Become Less Selective - and Get Better Students
Barry Schwartz
Capitalism & Society, 2016
Abstract:
In the process of admissions to selective colleges and universities, both the institutions and the applicants are trying to maximize. Applicants want to get into the "best" college and colleges want the "best" applicants. This paper argues that in this context, as in many others, maximizing is a fool's errand, partly because no one knows what the best college (or student) is, and partly because differences among applicants are smaller than the error in the instruments used to assess them. Moreover, it is a fool's errand with grave consequences, since it puts enormous pressure on students throughout their pre-college education and induces them to do what will impress rather than what they are actually passionate about. I propose, instead, a system in which all applicants who cross an acceptability threshold are entered into a lottery, with the winners (admitted students) chosen at random from that pool. Such a system might produce better, more engaged college students because they will be freer to pursue their passions and develop their intellects in high school. It might also teach students about the role of luck in many of life's outcomes, making them more empathic when they encounter people who may be just as deserving as they are, but less lucky. Finally, I suggest that maximizing in general may be a fool's errand, and that satisficing may produce better decisions, and greater satisfaction.
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Unions, Salaries, and the Market for Teachers: Evidence from Wisconsin
Barbara Biasi
Stanford Working Paper, December 2016
Abstract:
A careful study of teachers' labor demand and supply, while extremely relevant for policy, is challenging due to a lack of variation in pay, as teacher salaries are usually set using steps-and-lanes schedules based entirely on seniority and academic credentials. This paper exploits the passage of Act 10 in Wisconsin in 2011, which changed the scope of collective bargaining on teacher salaries, to study the effects of changes in pay on teachers' labor market, and on the composition of the teaching workforce. As a result of this law some districts started to individually negotiate salaries with each teacher, whereas other districts continued setting salaries using seniority-based schedules. I first document an increase in salary dispersion in individual-salaries districts, and show that it is correlated with teacher value-added. Teachers responded to changes in pay by sorting across districts or by exiting: I find a 34 percent increase in the quality of teachers moving from salary-schedule to individual-salary districts, and a 17 percent decrease in the quality of teachers exiting individual-salary districts. Building from this reduced-form evidence, I estimate the parameters of teachers' labor supply and demand using a two-sided choice model. Simulating the model on different salary schemes shows that an increase in the quality component of salaries in one district is associated with an improvement in average quality of the teaching workforce, driven by both in-movements of higher-quality teachers and out-movements and exits of lower-quality teachers. An increase in all districts is, however, associated with a smaller improvement, entirely attributable to exits of lower-quality teachers.
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Risk-sharing and student loan policy: Consequences for students and institutions
Douglas Webber
Economics of Education Review, April 2017, Pages 1-9
Abstract:
This paper examines the potential costs and benefits associated with a risk-sharing policy imposed on all higher education institutions. Under such a program, institutions would be required to pay for a portion of the student loans among which their students defaulted. I examine the predicted institutional responses under a variety of possible penalties and institutional characteristics using a straightforward model of institutional behavior based on monopolistic competition. I also examine the impact of a risk-sharing program on overall economic efficiency by estimating the returns to scale for undergraduate enrollment (as well as other outputs) among each of ten educational sectors. My estimates suggest that a risk-sharing program would induce only a modest tuition increase, with considerable heterogeneity across sectors. Two different penalty structures are analyzed in the context of the model, and alternative institutional responses such as tuition discounting and credit rating students are discussed.
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The Costs of and Net Returns to College Major
Joseph Altonji & Seth Zimmerman
NBER Working Paper, January 2017
Abstract:
This paper uses administrative student and expenditure data from Florida public universities to describe a) how the cost of producing graduates varies by major, b) how the inclusion of major-specific instructional costs alters the estimated net returns to different fields of study, and c) how major-specific instructional expenditures changed between 1999 and 2013. We find that the cost of producing graduates in the highest cost major (engineering) is roughly double that of producing graduates in low-cost majors, such as business. Cross-major comparisons of per graduate earnings returns net of costs differ from comparisons based on earnings outcomes alone in economically significant ways for a number of fields. Differences between net returns and earnings returns per dollar of instructional spending are even more pronounced. Our analysis of trends in instructional expenditures shows that per credit expenditures for undergraduate classes dropped by 16% in Florida universities between 1999 and 2013. The largest drops occurred in engineering and health, where per credit spending fell by more than 40%. Observed spending changes have little relationship with per credit costs or earnings outcomes.
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Arya Ansari et al.
Child Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examined the third-grade outcomes of 11,902 low-income Latino children who experienced public school pre-K or child care via subsidies (center-based care) at age 4 in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Regression and propensity score analyses revealed that children who experienced public school pre-K earned higher scores on standardized assessments of math and reading in third grade and had higher grade point averages than those who attended center-based care 4 years earlier. The sustained associations between public school pre-K (vs. center-based care) and third-grade outcomes were mediated by children's kindergarten entry preacademic and social-behavioral skills, and among English-language learners, English proficiency. Implications for investing in early childhood programs to assist with the school readiness of young Latino children in poverty are discussed.
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Utility-value intervention with parents increases students' STEM preparation and career pursuit
Christopher Rozek et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
During high school, developing competence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is critically important as preparation to pursue STEM careers, yet students in the United States lag behind other countries, ranking 35th in mathematics and 27th in science achievement internationally. Given the importance of STEM careers as drivers of modern economies, this deficiency in preparation for STEM careers threatens the United States' continued economic progress. In the present study, we evaluated the long-term effects of a theory-based intervention designed to help parents convey the importance of mathematics and science courses to their high-school-aged children. A prior report on this intervention showed that it promoted STEM course-taking in high school; in the current follow-up study, we found that the intervention improved mathematics and science standardized test scores on a college preparatory examination (ACT) for adolescents by 12 percentile points. Greater high-school STEM preparation (STEM course-taking and ACT scores) was associated with increased STEM career pursuit (i.e., STEM career interest, the number of college STEM courses, and students' attitudes toward STEM) 5 y after the intervention. These results suggest that the intervention can affect STEM career pursuit indirectly by increasing high-school STEM preparation. This finding underscores the importance of targeting high-school STEM preparation to increase STEM career pursuit. Overall, these findings demonstrate that a motivational intervention with parents can have important effects on STEM preparation in high school, as well as downstream effects on STEM career pursuit 5 y later.
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Cybercycling Effects on Classroom Behavior in Children With Behavioral Health Disorders: An RCT
April Bowling et al.
Pediatrics, forthcoming
Background and objectives: Exercise is linked with improved cognition and behavior in children in clinical and experimental settings. This translational study examined if an aerobic cybercycling intervention integrated into physical education (PE) resulted in improvements in behavioral self-regulation and classroom functioning among children with mental health disabilities attending a therapeutic day school.
Methods: Using a 14-week crossover design, students (N = 103) were randomly assigned by classroom (k = 14) to receive the 7-week aerobic cybercycling PE curriculum during fall 2014 or spring 2015. During the intervention, children used the bikes 2 times per week during 30- to 40-minute PE classes. During the control period, children participated in standard nonaerobic PE. Mixed effects logistic regression was used to assess relationships between intervention exposures and clinical thresholds of behavioral outcomes, accounting for both individual and classroom random effects.
Results: Children experienced 32% to 51% lower odds of poor self-regulation and learning-inhibiting disciplinary time out of class when participating in the intervention; this result is both clinically and statistically significant. Effects were appreciably more pronounced on days that children participated in the aerobic exercise, but carryover effects were also observed.
Conclusions: Aerobic cybercycling PE shows promise for improving self-regulation and classroom functioning among children with complex behavioral health disorders. This school-based exercise intervention may significantly improve child behavioral health without increasing parental burden or health care costs, or disrupting academic schedules.
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Robert Fairlie & Ariel Kalil
Economics of Education Review, April 2017, Pages 10-19
Abstract:
Concerns over the perceived negative impacts of computers on social development among children are prevalent but largely uninformed by plausibly causal evidence. We provide the first test of this hypothesis using a large-scale randomized control experiment in which more than one thousand children attending grades 6-10 across 15 different schools and 5 school districts in California were randomly given computers to use at home. Children in the treatment group are more likely to report having a social networking site, but also report spending more time communicating with their friends and interacting with their friends in person. There is no evidence that computer ownership displaces participation in after-school activities such as sports teams or clubs or reduces school participation and engagement.
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Does early bird catch the worm or a lower GPA? Evidence from a liberal arts college
Timothy Diette & Manu Raghav
Applied Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research in psychology has shown that early morning classes are not conducive to learning because of the peculiar sleep cycles of adolescents and young adults that cause them to be especially groggy in the morning. Our study examines the relationship between the times that classes are offered and the grades that students in these classes earn at a highly selective liberal arts college. Our main findings are that morning classes are harmful for student achievement. Grades are especially lower for classes that were scheduled at 8 am and 9 am. Moreover, while students of both genders are adversely affected by early morning courses, the effects are particularly pronounced for male students. This institution assigns students randomly to different sections of the same course, thus creating a quasi-natural experiment and enabling us to control for unobserved characteristics of students. In addition, we include student and faculty fixed effects.
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Consumer Risk Preferences and Higher Education Enrollment Decisions
Stuart Heckman & Catherine Montalto
Journal of Consumer Affairs, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although there are widespread concerns that consumers are making poor choices regarding higher education, the fact that human capital investments are risky is often overlooked in the national conversation. Therefore, this research investigates the effect of risk preferences on higher education enrollment decisions. A sample from the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) was analyzed, and the results indicate that consumer risk preferences have a significant effect on the likelihood of enrollment. Specifically, there was a robust, positive relationship between risk tolerance and the likelihood of enrollment even after controlling for time preferences and risk perceptions. Consistent with previous findings, ability, parental education, family net worth and income, and being female were positively associated with the likelihood of enrollment. The results suggest that risk preferences may be an important source of omitted variable bias in previous studies of higher education investment choices.
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Emilyn Ruble Whitesell, Leanna Stiefel & Amy Ellen Schwartz
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, December 2016, Pages 692-713
Abstract:
Across the country and in urban areas in particular, many students change schools during the academic year. While much research documents the impact of changing schools on the academic achievement of mobile students themselves, less research explores whether new arrivals have negative spillovers on stable classmates. The lack of research on impacts of mid-year entry is problematic, as poor, minority, and low-achieving students are disproportionately exposed to mid-year entry. In this study, we use a rigorous causal identification strategy and rich longitudinal data on fourth- through eighth-grade students in the New York City (NYC) public schools to estimate the impact of exposure to mid-year entry on the achievement of stable students. We analyze heterogeneous effects of mid-year entrants by origin (arriving from other NYC public schools, from other U.S. school systems, or from other countries), determine the extent to which mid-year entrants' characteristics mediate the impact of mid-year entry, and explore the moderating influence of stable students' characteristics. We find small negative effects of mid-year entry on both math and English language arts test scores in the short run. These impacts are not driven by mid-year entrant characteristics and are somewhat larger for Asian students and those who do not qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Finally, results suggest mid-year entry continues to negatively influence the math performance of stable students beyond the year of exposure. We discuss the relevance of results and conclude with recommendations for future research.
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Susan Payne Carter, Kyle Greenberg & Michael Walker
Economics of Education Review, February 2017, Pages 118-132
Abstract:
We present findings from a study that prohibited computer devices in randomly selected classrooms of an introductory economics course at the United States Military Academy. Average final exam scores among students assigned to classrooms that allowed computers were 0.18 standard deviations lower than exam scores of students in classrooms that prohibited computers. Through the use of two separate treatment arms, we uncover evidence that this negative effect occurs in classrooms where laptops and tablets are permitted without restriction and in classrooms where students are only permitted to use tablets that must remain flat on the desk.
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Where Do Students Go when For-Profit Colleges Lose Federal Aid?
Stephanie Cellini, Rajeev Darolia & Lesley Turner
NBER Working Paper, December 2016
Abstract:
Recent federal investigations and new regulations have resulted in restrictions on for-profit institutions' access to federal student aid. We examine the enrollment effects of similar restrictions imposed on over 1,200 for-profit colleges in the 1990s. Using variation in regulations linked to student loan default rates, we estimate the impact of the loss of federal aid on the enrollment of Pell Grant recipients in sanctioned institutions and their local competitors. Enrollment in a sanctioned for-profit college declines by 53 percent in the five years following a sanction. For-profit sanctions result in negative spillovers on unsanctioned competitor for-profit colleges in the same county, which experience modest enrollment declines. These enrollment losses in the for-profit sector are offset by gains in enrollment in local community colleges, suggesting that the loss of federal student aid for poor-performing for-profit colleges does not reduce overall college-going but instead shifts students across higher education sectors. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that students induced to enroll in community colleges following a for-profit competitor's sanction are less likely to default on their federal loans.
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Tashia Abry et al.
Developmental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Concerns regarding the social-behavioral maladjustment of U.S. youth have spurred efforts among educators and policymakers to identify and remedy educational contexts that exacerbate children's anxiety, depression, aggression, and misconduct. However, investigations of the influence of collective classroom student characteristics on individuals' social-behavioral functioning are few. The present study examined concurrent and longitudinal relations between adversity factors facing the collective classroom student group and levels of children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors across the elementary school years, and whether the pattern of relations differed for girls and boys. First-, third-, and fifth-grade teachers reported on the extent to which adversity-related factors (e.g., home/family life, academic readiness, social readiness, English proficiency, tardiness/absenteeism, student mobility, health) presented a challenge in their classrooms (i.e., classroom-level adversity [CLA]). Mothers reported on their child's internalizing and externalizing behavior at each grade. Autoregressive, lagged panel models controlled for prior levels of internalizing and externalizing behavior, mothers' education, family income-to-needs, and class size. For all children at each grade, CLA was concurrently and positively associated with externalizing behavior. For first-grade girls, but not boys, CLA was also concurrently and positively associated with internalizing behavior. Indirect effects suggested CLA influenced later internalizing and externalizing behavior through its influence on maladjustment in a given year. Discussion highlights possible methods of intervention to reduce CLA or the negative consequences associated with being in a higher-adversity classroom.
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Testing Civics: State-Level Civic Education Requirements and Political Knowledge
David Campbell & Richard Niemi
American Political Science Review, August 2016, Pages 495-511
Abstract:
Do state-level exams in civics have a positive impact on young people's civic knowledge? We hypothesize that civics exams have the biggest effect in states where they are a requirement for high school graduation - the incentive hypothesis. We further hypothesize that civics requirements have the biggest effect on young people with less exposure to information about the U.S. political system at home, specifically Latinos and, especially, immigrants - the compensation hypothesis. We test these hypotheses with the 2006 and 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics test administered to high school students, and with a large national survey of 18-24 year-olds. Across the two datasets, we find modest support for the incentive hypothesis and strong support for the compensation hypothesis.
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Christiana Stoddard, Carly Urban & Maximilian Schmeiser
Economics of Education Review, February 2017, Pages 95-109
Abstract:
More students than ever borrow to finance post-secondary education. However, students receive little information during the course of their college career that encourages them to recalibrate loan amounts and to consider academic and borrowing decisions jointly. This paper exploits a natural experiment to understand how targeted information can change student behavior. We study a large public university where students above a given debt threshold received letters with bundled information on student loan debt and effectively completing college, while students below the threshold did not. Using a difference-in-difference strategy and administrative data on individual-level academic records and borrowing, the intervention did not change borrowing in the subsequent semester but improved academic outcomes: credits completed and GPAs increased in the subsequent semester and retention rates increased.
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Measuring Instructor Effectiveness in Higher Education
Pieter De Vlieger, Brian Jacob & Kevin Stange
NBER Working Paper, December 2016
Abstract:
Instructors are a chief input into the higher education production process, yet we know very little about their role in promoting student success. This is in contrast to elementary and secondary schooling, for which ample evidence suggests teacher quality is an important determinant of student achievement. Whether colleges could improve student and institutional performance by reallocating instructors or altering personnel policies hinges on the role of instructors in student success. In this paper we measure variation in postsecondary instructor effectiveness and estimate its relationship to overall and course-specific teaching experience. We explore this issue in the context of the University of Phoenix, a large for-profit university that offers both online and in-person courses in a wide array of fields and degree programs. We focus on instructors in the college algebra course that is required for all BA degree program students. We find substantial variation in student performance across instructors both in the current class and subsequent classes. Variation is larger for in-person classes, but is still substantial for online courses. Effectiveness grows modestly with course-specific teaching experience, but is unrelated to pay. Our results suggest that personnel policies for recruiting, developing, motivating, and retaining effective postsecondary instructors may be a key, yet underdeveloped, tool for improving institutional productivity.
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Was That SMART? Institutional Financial Incentives and Field of Study
Jeffrey Denning & Patrick Turley
Journal of Human Resources, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine whether students respond to immediate financial incentives when choosing their college major. From 2006-07 to 2010-11, low-income students in technical or foreign language majors could receive up to $8,000 in SMART Grants. Since income-eligibility was determined using a strict threshold, we determine the causal impact of this grant on student major with a regression discontinuity design. Using administrative data from public universities in Texas, we determine that income-eligible students were 3.2 percentage points more likely than their ineligible peers to major in targeted fields. We measure a larger impact of 10.2 percentage points at Brigham Young University.