The effect of community college enrollment on bachelor's degree completion

Rouse [Rouse, C. E. (1995). Democratization or diversion—the effect of community-colleges on educational-attainment. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 13(2), 217–224] finds that enrollment in a community college may divert students from attaining a bachelor's degree. However, this result may be due to selection bias, as the population of community college students should be quite different from those who attend 4-year institutions in terms of both observable and unobservable characteristics. This study uses propensity score matching to non-parametrically balance a data set from the 1996 Beginning Postsecondary Students survey in order to overcome issues associated with selection bias. Results from a Cox proportional hazards model indicate that attendance at a community college lowers the hazard rate for completing a bachelor's degree. The results are consistent with previous studies.     

The impact of short-term economic fluctuations on kindergarten enrollment

For some 5-year-olds, delayed kindergarten enrollment may result in long-term academic benefits. Although waiting an additional year allows for further development prior to the start of formal education, the economic costs of the next best alternatives can be significant. This study examines the impact of short-term economic fluctuations on a household's kindergarten enrollment decision. I find that during economic downturns kindergarten enrollment increases. To explore a potential mechanism through which this effect may arise, I propose an instrumental variables approach to identify the causal effect of fluctuations in household resources due to the business cycle on the timing of kindergarten enrollment.     

The impact of athletic performance on alumni giving: An analysis of microdata

An ongoing controversy in the literature on the economics of higher education centers on whether the success of a school’s athletic program affects alumni donations. This paper uses a unique data set to investigate this issue. The data contain detailed information about donations made by alumni of a selective research university as well as a variety of their economic and demographic characteristics. One important question is how to characterize the success of an athletic program. We focus not only on the performance of the most visible teams, football and basketball, but also on the success of the team on which he or she played as an undergraduate.     

The impact of a universal class-size reduction policy: Evidence from Florida's statewide mandate

Class-size reduction (CSR) mandates presuppose that resources provided to reduce class size will have a larger impact on student outcomes than resources that districts can spend as they see fit. I estimate the impact of Florida's statewide CSR policy by comparing the deviations from prior achievement trends in districts that were required to reduce class size to deviations from prior trends in districts that received equivalent resources but were not required to reduce class size. I use the same comparative interrupted time series design to compare schools that were differentially affected by the policy (in terms of whether they had to reduce class size) but that did not receive equal additional resources. The results from both the district- and school-level analyses indicate that mandated CSR in Florida had little, if any, effect on student achievement.     

Attrition in STEM fields at a liberal arts college: The importance of grades and pre-collegiate preferences

There is widespread concern, both in the private and public sectors, about perceived declines in U.S. college graduates in STEM fields. In our sample, the proportion of science majors has remained steady over the sample period; however, the number entering our college intending to major in STEM fields has fallen. In this paper we use administrative data from the graduating classes of 2001–2009, roughly 5000 graduates, from a northeastern liberal arts college to model the progression of students through STEM majors. The results suggest that absolute and sometimes relative grades are important, as is the intended major (as reported on the admissions application). AP credits are also strongly correlated to taking a first course, but diminish in the more selected samples. Simulations suggest that if science grade distributions were more like the college average, there would be roughly 2–4% more students progressing in STEM departments.     

独立学院中奖助学金政策对大学生的影响探究

在中国进入21世纪后,随着高校的扩招,国家对高等教育的投入也越来越大,资助政策也越来越完善,助学金的数额也随之增加,以独立学院为例,高额学费使得部分学生求学路途艰辛,但是国家政策的关怀,并没有引起广大学生的社会回报,反而表现出种种意料的变化,这些变化值得高校和政府部门的研究反思。     

The impact of financial aid on women's demand for higher education

The Educational Amendments of 1972 marked a new direction in public policy regarding the scope and purpose of financial aid to higher education. Aid became more student-oriented, and equality of opportunity for higher education became a goal. This empirical study with national longitudinal data has made a start in policy evaluation of the effect of the 1972 Educational Amendments on the higher education acquired by young women. The most important result of financial aid receipt for young women is that those who received aid averaged 0.64 more years completed of higher education and averaged .145 greater graduation probability than similar women who did not receive aid. These results were obtained in multiple regression models in which the effects of marital status, parental background, geographic locations and economic characteristics, and tuition level were controlled for. These results suggest that policy attempts to stimulate the higher education acquired by enrolled young women by increasing the availability of financial aid are well founded.     

The relative efficiency of charter schools: A cost frontier approach

Charters represent an expansion of public school choice, offering free, publicly funded educational alternatives to traditional public schools. One relatively unexplored research question concerning charter schools asks whether charter schools are more efficient suppliers of educational services than are traditional public schools. The potential relative efficiency advantage of charters vis-a-vis traditional publics is one of the mechanisms that supports the hypotheses that charters could improve performance for their students while using the same or fewer resources, and that the systemic effect of charters could lead to improved outcomes for traditional public students without requiring an increase in education sector resources.     

The effect of the financial aid package on the choice of a selective college

This paper examines the effects of financial aid on the decision to attend a selective liberal arts college using data obtained from applicants accepted to Occidental College in 1989. Patterned after a similar empirical investigation by Ehrenberg and Sherman for accepted freshmen at Cornell in 1981, logit probabilities of enrollment equations are estimated based on (1) observable characteristics of the individual students, (2) the net costs of attending Occidental and the various alternative colleges under consideration (including the financial aid packages offered) and (3) other characteristics of these alternative colleges. The results, like Ehrenberg and Sherman's, indicate that relative tuition and scholarships affect the probability of enrollment for financial aid applicants, but that loans and work study assistance have no statistically significant effect. Non-financial aid applicants — a group not investigated by Ehrenberg and Sherman — are much less sensitive to relative cost considerations.     

The affective impact of field experience education on college students

Field experience education encompasses a wealth of undergraduate curricular opportunities, including cooperative education, internships, adventure learning, and study abroad. Studies of field experiences may be organized according to three stages of the experiential process: selection factors prior to the experience, immediate change due to the experience, and the persistence of change following the experience. Compared to traditional campus activities, field experiences appear to have some significant affective impact on college students. However, a knowledge of experimental design techniques makes obvious the need for a major revision of the manner in which field experiences have been evaluated.     

The impact of incorrect examples on learning fractions: A field experiment with 6th grade students

Educational research indicates that error reflection, especially reflection on incorrect examples, has a positive effect on knowledge acquisition. The benefit of error reflections might be explained by the extended knowledge of incorrect strategies and concepts (negative knowledge) which fosters the learning of new content. In a field experiment with a pre-post-design we taught fractions to N = 195 6th grade students and compared two conditions that encouraged reflection on either incorrect or correct examples. We found that incorrect examples supported students’ negative knowledge more than correct examples. However, regarding the knowledge of fractions, only advanced students could benefit from incorrect examples; students with low prior knowledge learned more from correct examples. Even though negative knowledge showed a partial mediation effect for knowledge acquisition, it did not mediate the effect of error reflections on the acquisition of knowledge of fractions. The implications for school instruction are discussed.     

民族高校贫困生资助体系及激励机制探究

民族高校贫困生资助体系和激励机制的建设是我国一项重要工程。这些学生经济上贫困,生活上需要支持,思想上需要鼓励,心理上需要扶持。完善高校的资助体系不仅仅用经济形式给予帮助,而应该有所创新。从思想上给予他们以支持和帮助。从心态上使他们能够充实平衡,缓解心理压力。同时通过多元化的激励使他们提高组织、沟通、协调等多方面的综合能力。通过对高校贫困生资助体系的进一步完善,不只是从经济上给予贫困生于支持鼓励,更重要的是能在心态和精神层面给他们以引导,激发他们的信心和潜能。     

Equal educational spending across districts—A case study of Taiwan

By specifying different goals of educational spending across districts, it is found that input (spending) equality and cost minimization improve both the Gini indexes of the college admission rate and public educational spending per student across different districts for the case of Taiwan. While complete output equality is not feasible, the extent to which a policy achieves output equality depends on the society's choice, and is likely to cost more. Rawls’ equity ensures a minimal college admission rate for a given district. One goal is not necessarily superior to the others, but is a choice based on society's preferences.     

High Schools That Work and college preparedness: Measuring the model's impact on mathematics and science pipeline progression

The High Schools That Work school improvement initiative is the nation's largest comprehensive school reform model with over a thousand schools adopting its framework. The initiative's premise is that all students can meet the demands of a college preparatory curriculum if provided the right supports. Analyzing over a decade of data on student course taking and performance, we employ a rigorous comparative interrupted time series strategy to assess the extent to which HSTW meets its goal by increasing students’ successful progression through the mathematics and science pipelines. Each pipeline consists of three college preparatory courses: algebra 1, geometry, and algebra 2 in mathematics and biology plus two physical science courses in science. The results show no effect on pipeline progression for the average student and some evidence of increased gaps in course taking between more advantaged and disadvantaged students.     

放飞自我--有效促进高校经济困难学生群体个人成长的探索性研究

高校中的经济困难学生因为家境的贫寒在求学道路上比其他人面临更多的困难和压力。这些困难与压力,既有来自经济上的异常拮据,也有来自心理上的沉重负担。“贫困”,成为这类学生心中“沉重的痛”。“助学解困”不仅要有经济上的援助,更需要有心理上的“扶助”。如何挖掘这一群体本身的力量,发挥和利用群体动力来有效地促进个人心理和人格的成长,是本研究的一个尝试。     

Expenditures and postsecondary graduation: An investigation using individual-level data from the state of Ohio

Using detailed individual-level data from public universities in the state of Ohio, I estimate the effect of various institutional expenditures on the probability of graduating from college. Using a competing risks regression framework, I find differential impacts of expenditure categories across student characteristics. I estimate that student service expenditures have a larger impact on students with low SAT/ACT scores, while instructional expenditures are more important for high test score students and those majoring in scientific/quantitative fields. The individual-level nature of these data allows me to address measurement error and endogeneity concerns the previous literature has been unable to deal with.     

Math skills and labor-market outcomes: Evidence from a resume-based field experiment

We examine the link between math skills and labor-market outcomes using a resume-based field experiment. Specifically, we send fictitious resumes in response to online job postings, randomly assigning some resumes to indicate stronger math skills, and measure employer responses. The resumes that are randomly assigned to indicate stronger math skills receive more interest from employers than the comparison resumes. Our findings add to the body of evidence showing that stronger math skills positively affect labor-market outcomes.     

An investigation of sex discrimination in the awarding of financial aid to college students

This study investigated whether or not sex discrimination existed in awarding financial aid to college students in 40 midwestern colleges and universities. It examined whether there were significant differences in financial aid awards to incoming freshmen when financial aid directors reviewed simulated aid profiles, which were identical except for the sex and a picture of the applicant. It also examined whether awards varied by type of educational institution. The results yielded no significant differences for either sex or type of institution comparisons, although there was extensive variability in the amounts awarded. If the directors react to real-life profiles as they did to the simulated ones, the federal guidelines would appear sufficient in this instance to prevent sex discrimination.     

The effects of student aid on recent college graduates

Using college graduates from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (N=3,136), this study reviews the relationships between student financial aid received during college and the types of activities pursued by students after graduating. Four areas of graduates' lives were examined: attending graduate school, choosing a job, forming a family, and forming personal values. Three types of student aid were included: loans, grants, and work, with emphasis on loans. Despite the expectation of a negative impact of loans, the results showed no support for this, and in general, the findings suggested that college graduates who received aid as undergraduates were little different from other graduates. The major implication is that the self-help forms of aid (loans and work) are not detrimental to the future plans of recipients.This paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Washington, D.C., April 1979.     

Statistical models for college admission and enrollment: A case study for a selective liberal arts college

In making admission decisions, selective colleges make choices that allow them to improve the quality of the college. Desired student attributes include leadership, noteworthy achievements and talents, and cultural and geographical diversity, as well as high academic performance. Since few applicants dominate in all these attributes, a delicate balancing act must be forged.In this study we construct probability models for college admissions and student enrollment. We have chosen a selective liberal arts college as a case study over a four-year period. In the first stage we estimate the probability of acceptance to the college for individual applicants. The logit model includes a number of academic factors as well as nonacademic components. In the second stage we estimate the probability of enrollment for an accepted student.The first stage results show that the actual outcome of the admissions decision does match the broader institutional goals of the college. However, in the second stage, the discrepancy between the acceptance and enrollment decisions frustrates the efforts of the institution to achieve its diversity goals and highlights the difficulty that admission officers have in targeting their efforts toward special groups of applicants.