Research

Remedial Education Reform in California and Community College Student Outcomes  (Job Market Paper):

The efficacy of remedial education in helping students achieve academic success has long been debated. Between 2013 and 2017, California passed various remedial education reforms, first changing remedial education placement of students, and later removing remedial education mandates altogether. These reforms increased direct access to transfer-level courses for students without first requiring remedial education. I exploit the timing of these reforms to explore how students fare in community  college without completing the remediation sequence. I find that these reforms induced students at all levels of academic preparation to take and pass transfer-level courses at similar or higher rates as students before the policy change, except for students at the lowest level of academic preparation, who passed at slightly lower rates. Furthermore, the removal of remediation requirements encouraged additional transfer-level course taking, but at a lower completion rate. Overall, removing remediation requirements had positive effects on student success for students at all levels of college readiness, particularly for those on the margin of requiring remediation.

Minimum Wage and Higher Education (with Scott Carrell and Lester Lusher): 

We pair variation in California minimum wage laws with administrative data on the census of high school students matched to detailed postsecondary records to precisely estimate a positive, but small, increase in overall college-going in response to increases in local minimum wage laws. Underlying this effect is a significant shift in student composition across college sector and quality. Lower performing, economically disadvantaged, and traditionally underrepresented students increase enrollment at community colleges. Meanwhile, higher performing students substitute their enrollment from community colleges into four year public institutions. Finally, results examining unit accumulation for two-year college students provides evidence that increases in minimum wage alleviate financial constraints.

Works in Progress:

Student Debt and Major Choice

Minimum Wage and Student Success in Higher Education