I believe in decision making informed by data. I have made a concerted effort to merge my leadership role with my scholarship. The goal is to raise questions important to higher education leadership and then do the heavy lifting of investigating the data. Here, I summarize my work.
Question: Does starting D3 football program benefit the university?
Background: Private, liberal arts institutions rely heavily on athletics as many students participate in D3 sports. Little is known about the impact on the institution. I explore football because (a) there has been significant movement in the number of schools starting football programs, (b) it is resource intense, and (c) the number of student-athletes is large.
Summary of Findings: There is no change in the overall number of students but there is an adjustment to the gender ratio on campus (becoming more balanced). Also, importantly, schools that adopt football are trending downward in tuition revenue and endowment prior. The adoption of college football does not affect these trends. [paper here]
Question: Does launching graduate business programs at small, liberal-arts colleges generate financial benefits?
Background: Many private colleges have avoided professional programming but this is reversing. In fact, some are moving into graduate business education as a source of new revenues. I ask what impact this has on the institutions.
Summary of Findings: There are spillover effects as undergraduate business enrollment, total undergraduate enrollment, and total graduate enrollment all increase. Tuition revenues improve without having a measurable effect on the endowment. [working paper here]
Question: Does gender identity influence college admissions counselors?
Background: There is growing awareness of non-binary gender and the question arises as to whether there is discrimination against non-binary individuals in higher education (or discrimination favoring them).
Summary of Findings: I conduct a field experiment where emails were sent to almost 2000 admission counselors at universities across the U.S. differing in which pronouns were listed in the signature line. I then measured response rates. I find that counselors were more likely to respond to emails disclosing preferred pronouns and that there is not discrimination against non-binary individuals. Text analysis reveals that those who include pronouns receive friendlier responses. Machine learning is used to identify the attributes of institutions that provide differential response rates. [paper here]
Question: Does AACSB accreditation generate benefits for universities?
Background: Many business schools have accreditation and AACSB is a leading organization. There are concerns that it is costly as it requires administrative structures and increases instructional expenses. The question here is whether there are financial benefits to justify the costs.
Summary of Findings: We consider those business programs which first become accredited. Regarding business school enrollment, while initial evidence suggests that the accreditation is associated with a decrease in enrollments, we show that this is complicated by non-parallel trends prior to accreditation. Correcting for the non-parallel trends, we fail to find evidence that AACSB accreditation halts this negative undergraduate enrollment trend. We do find potential benefits to graduate business enrollment. Considering institution-wide effects, we fail to find an impact on undergraduate applications, first-year enrollment, price, or quality of the incoming student body. [paper here]
Question: Do scandals in college athletics affect the institution?
Background: There is an active debate as to the degree to which NCAA athletics affect the overall institution. I study the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State involving a former football coach. The case generated negative, nationwide attention.
Summary of Findings: Applying the synthetic control method to create a reasonable counterfactual, we find that the average high school GPA is 0.12 points less and the proportion of students with high SAT Math scores is down 4.8 percentage points. Thus, the scandal harmed admissions efforts. [paper here]
Question: Does competing in major college football benefit the institution?
Background: To control costs, NCAA Division I athletics divides its football programs into two subdivisions: FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) and FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision). The latter is substantially more costly but can generate more revenues. I study those institutions that have reclassified from FCS to FBS and explore the impact on enrollment and tuition revenue.
Summary of Findings: We find increases in applications and enrollment, but the impact on tuition revenue is mixed. Thus, playing at a higher level of college football increases the institution's attractiveness, but may come with greater tuition discounts. [working paper here]
... and one on educational policy in high schools ...
Question: What is the impact of limitations to exclusionary discipline?
Background: Illinois Senate Bill 100 dramatically reduced the use of expulsions and out-of-school suspensions. We ask what effect that had on the educational atmosphere. We look at those schools with a high use of suspensions relative to those who use it the least. We focus on high school graduation rate, along with potential collateral consequences to the truancy rate and teacher retention rate.
Summary of Findings: We find that the graduation rate increases by approximately two percentage points. Additionally, the truancy rate increases and the teacher retention rate decreases. Thus, the policy has had important, negative collateral consequences. [working paper here]
*This work was completed with an IWU undergraduate student, Ernie Waterson