Research
Clearing Up Transfer Admissions Standards: The Impact On Access And Outcomes (Forthcoming, the Journal of Human Resources)
Publisher's Version | Ed Working Paper Version
Summaries: Brookings Blogpost | Inside Higher Ed
Students’ college choices can affect their chances of earning a degree, but many lack the support to navigate the opaque college application and admissions process. This paper evaluates whether guaranteeing admissions to four-year colleges based on transparent academic standards affected transfer enrollment choices and graduation rates. Guaranteed admissions increased high-GPA community college graduates’ transfer rates to highly selective colleges by 30 percent. Graduation rates from highly selective colleges increased and student debt decreased. Gains were largest for students with historically lower transfer rates. Transparent college admissions standards can increase access to selective colleges at low to no cost.
Do College Faculty Affect Students’ Long-Term Achievement? Evidence from Developmental Courses
In this paper, I use statewide data from Texas and Virginia to study whether students assigned to more effective faculty in developmental courses are more likely to graduate on time and have higher earnings. Using residual pass rates as a measure of faculty value-added, I find that a one standard deviation increase in faculty value-added boosts academic persistence, college completion, and earnings by 0.02-0.13 SD. Impacts on long-run outcomes are mediated by short-run academic indicators such as reduced course withdrawal, improved follow-up course performance, and increased credit accumulation. Faculty value-added is decreasing in the number of courses and students taught each semester, and is less related to demographic characteristics such as faculty gender, race, and age. These results suggest that efforts to improve faculty hiring, assignments, or working conditions may affect student outcomes.
Navigating the "Option" in Test-Optional: Evidence from the Common App (with Christopher Avery and Preston Magouirk)
In Fall 2020, most selective colleges made it optional to report their SAT or ACT scores when applying to colleges. Using data from Common App, we provide the first and largest description of student decision-making in a test-optional admissions context. First, we find application rates to the most selective Common App member colleges increased between 2019-2020. The probability of applying to more selective colleges increased most for women, middle-GPA students, and students from higher-income communities. Second, average test scores submitted to colleges increased by 60 points in 2020 after years of stable averages, implying that students with higher scores were more likely to report scores when it was optional. Third, most applicants to the most selective colleges still reported scores even when it was optional. Finally, applicants were more likely to report their scores when those scores reached or exceeded the median scores for the colleges to which they applied. These results suggest that test-optional policies alone may not induce significantly different application choices for high-GPA and underrepresented students, and that applicants consider whether their scores increase their admissions probability when they have the option to report them or not.
In the U.S., state politicians directly influence legislation and budget decisions that can substantially affect public education spending and students. Does the political party of elected officials matter for these outcomes? We use a regression discontinuity design to analyze close house and gubernatorial elections from 1982 to 2016 and find that the impact of Democratic control of state government depends on whether elections occur during a presidential election year. On average, Democratic states spend less per capita on K-12 education. This trend, however, reverses when Democrats secure marginal control during off-cycle elections. Outside of presidential election years, we find increased state expenditures on both K-12 education and higher education. These increases coincided with smaller K-12 class sizes, relatively higher high school diploma rates, and expanded college enrollment. Our results highlight the importance of considering how federal political contexts influence the effects of state-level politics on education finance and outcomes.