Education Economics Commons^™

An Empirical Study Of Earnings Of Immigrants And Native-Born Americans In The U.S. Labor Market Given Different Levels Of Educational Attainment, Yuli P. Gomez Bravo

Applied Economics Theses

This paper will compare the Lifetime wage earnings of immigrants and native-born citizens in the U.S. for the years 2000-2010 according to educational attainment using cross-sectional data. The data obtained through IPUMS-CPS Integrated Public Use of Microdata Series, University of Minnesota. The findings of investment in Human Capital of Mincer (1958), the Immigrants earnings distribution of Chiswick and Miller (2006), the Pareto’s law of income distribution, and the immigrants investment in human capital model by Duleep and Regets (1999) are the theoretical basis in which this study will be ruled. The empirical evidence suggests that immigrants who invest in education …

Need Based Aid From Selective Universities And The Achievement Gap Between Rich And Poor, Sunha Myong

Research Collection School Of Economics

I study the role of need-based aid from selective universities in closing the achievement gap between rich and poor high school students. I focus on the incentive aspect of need-based aid that can change high school students’ effort choices. The impact of increasing need-based aid depends on the extent of borrowing constraints and how competition affects the relative performance of low- and high-income students. I develop a structural model of students’ learning, application, and admission processes, and estimate it with the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, a nationally representative sample. I use a geographic variation in costs of attending selective …

University Rankings: Evidence And A Conceptual Framework, Jonathan G.S. Koppell, Jacob Fowles, H. George Frederickson

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

University ranking has high public visibility, the ranking business has flourished, and institutions of higher education have not been able to ignore it. This study of university ranking presents general considerations of ranking and institutional responses to it, particularly considering reactions to ranking, ranking as a self-fulfilling prophecy, and ranking as a means of transforming qualities into quantities. The authors present a conceptual framework of university ranking based on three propositions and carry out a descriptive statistical analysis of U.S. and international ranking data to evaluate those propositions. The first proposition of university ranking is that ranking systems are demarcated …

Have You Counted The Ingredients On Your Child's Lunch Tray?: An Economic Analysis Of Sustainability Initiatives Within The School Lunch Program, Vanessa R. Scalora

Business and Economics Summer Fellows

In 2010, President Obama signed the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, establishing a monetary incentive for schools that served meals following a more rigorous nutritional requirement than standard guidelines. This act is a step in the right direction towards placing more importance on school lunches, however America’s lunchroom practices continue to be environmentally unsustainable, and students absorb this message. The production and transportation of processed cafeteria food contributes to climate change, its packaging is polluting, and its consumption contributes to obesity. The use of premade foods and sales from vending machines increase as lunch times grow ever shorter. In addition, …

Orono: Growing As A University Town, 1965-2015, Evan D. Richert Aicp, Sophia L. Wilson

Maine History

By 1965, the Town of Orono’s long history as a lumber town had faded and it had grown into a small university town. Demographically and socially, Orono today demonstrates many of the markers of a university town—from its occupational profile and residency of university employees and students to its growing knowledge-based economy and its evolving downtown of “third places.” But there are differences, too, from a typical university town—for example, in the relative physical isolation of the University of Maine from the rest of the town, and in Orono’s small population compared with the university’s enrollment. Opinions on the quality …

Bullying And Human Capital Accumulation: Evidence From The National Longitudinal Survey Of Youth, 1997, Jessica Lum

Theses and Dissertations

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 (NLSY97) is used to study the effect of bullying on human capital accumulation. Findings suggest that adolescent bullying has a significant and negative impact on the highest educational level attained, as well as income earned as an adult.

"How The Unemployment Rate In Spain Affects University Enrollment", Morgan A. Clarke

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis studies the subsequent labor market outcomes of college graduates during an economic recession in Spain over the years 2000-2012. I use data on undergraduate enrollment, unemployment, national income, and educational spend from the Spanish National Institute of Statistics, the CIA World Fact Book, Spain’s Ministry of Education, and World Bank to run regression analyses and the Granger Causality Test. I find that university enrollment and unemployment rate are positively correlated. Regression results show that for every one percent increase in unemployment, enrollment increases by approximately 7,429 students.

Craft Publishing: A Proposal For A Programmatic Paradigm Shift In Academic Libraries, Sue Ann Gardner, Paul Royster, Linnea Fredrickson, Brian Rosenblum, L. Ada Emmett

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Conference Presentations and Speeches

This presentation will include the parameters by which an effective, at-cost publishing program may be structured in academic libraries. With advances in technology, electronic storage, and connectivity, and contrary to the claim that such activities may result in a “race to the bottom,” libraries have proven to be natural entities within which to effect a paradigm change in scholarly publishing. Activities to date, however, have been more often than not underfunded and understaffed. Even among those that have been well supported, efforts across the community have been ad hoc. Within the context of recent initiatives and discussions, the authors will …

Does Academic Performance Predict Workplace Productivity?, Jodie-Gaye Hunter

Honors Projects in Economics

This research examines if college GPA affects productivity and compensation in the workplace. It uses data collected from a survey of approximately 23,000 Bryant University graduates in different stages of their career. About 10 percent of the alumni surveyed completed the survey. The econometric model used in this study allows estimating the effect of GPA on income after controlling for various demographic and socioeconomic variables, including education, major, occupation, gender, among others. The empirical work provides evidence that GPA has a positive and statistically significant impact on workplace productivity for females, but GPA seems to be a weaker predictor of …

Is It Worth Your Time? Biggest Contributors To Starting Salary For Bryant University Students, Brittany Sarza

Honors Projects in Finance

Students often wonder what curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular activities contribute to initial starting salary. Previous studies on this topic have indicated that the factors GPA, major/field of study, gender, and having an internship all increase starting salary. Prior research showed a positive and significant relationship between GPA and starting salary (Jones and Jackson, 1990), fields that require mathematical abilities had higher starting salaries in comparison to those fields without quantitative abilities (Paglin and Rufolo, 1990), 95% of the gender gap in starting salaries with women earning less than men could be attributed to college majors selected (McDonald and Thorton, 2007), …

Loan Counseling For Graduate And Professional Students, Patricia Steele, Chad Anderson

Commissioned Research

This report provides an overview of existing literature that examines loan counseling and financial literacy for graduate and professional students, and includes actionable recommendations for stakeholders to better support students in making optimal financial decisions about their loans and other aspects of their personal finances. The report was authored by Patricia Steele, Ph.D., and Chad Anderson with Higher Ed Insight.

Exploring Economic And Social Factors That Increase Economic And Well-Being Measurements Of Developing And Developed Countries, Kofi D. Boadu

Undergraduate Economic Review

The historical growth paths of developed and developing countries reveal the challenges that developing countries face in traveling the road from poverty to prosperity. Based on economic development literature, economic theory, and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression method, this research considers whether or not, and to what extent globalization characteristics, foreign direct investment levels (FDI), secondary school enrollment rates, information communication technology (ICT) as a percentage of trade imports, and happiness levels of 103 developing and developed countries, impact their GDP per capita levels. This paper will also take a look at alternative ways of viewing and measuring economic success.

A Latent-Class Discrete-Choice Model To Demonstrate How Course Attributes And Student Characteristics Influence Demand For Economics Electives: The Challenge To Increase Enrollment, Reginald T. Dillingham Ii

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A primary goal of universities is to maximize student enrollment by improving course curriculum and enhancing specific programs. This is especially a challenge for smaller universities who want to offer specialized and highly diverse electives. This study aims to increase the quality and relevance of electives offered by understanding specifically what attributes students prefer more or less when choosing among alternatives. The results are used to explore how to use limited marketing and student-outreach financial resources to target students that are most likely to enter and complete courses and programs, based in part on their socioeconomic or demographic characteristics. The …

Peer Misbehavior Effects In The Classroom, Alex Hwung

CMC Senior Theses

This paper seeks to evaluate the effects of peer misbehavior in the classroom on student learning outcomes--namely, if there is any truth behind the old saying that “one bad apple ruins the bunch”. Using experimental data, I show that there is a strong initial relationship between the level of misbehavior in a given classroom and performance on a mathematics evaluation; however, the inclusion of lagged peer achievement in the model causes most of that relationship to be absorbed away, suggesting that the bulk of peer effects stem more from the academic performance of other students than from their behavior.

Increasing College Opportunity: School Counselors And Fafsa Completion, Laura Owen, Erik Westlund

Journal of College Access

Closing postsecondary opportunity gaps has become a national, state and local educational priority. To help eliminate these gaps, the US Department of Education initiated a project that provided real time student level Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) completion status to large urban school districts. Leveraging this information, school counselors identified and supported students and families as they navigated the financial aid process, resulting in statistically significant impacts on FAFSA completion and college attendance.

Income-Driven Repayment And The Public Financing Of Higher Education, John R. Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article provides the first comprehensive analysis in the legal literature of the federal government’s new income-driven student loan repayment programs, known as Income-Based Repayment and Pay As You Earn. In a set of gradual and little-noticed statutory and regulatory moves, the federal government, through these programs, has dramatically reshaped higher education finance in ways that schools, students, and even the government itself are only beginning to understand.

Under IBR and PAYE, a student borrower pays no more than 10% of her discretionary income in loan service payments, and after a maximum of 20 years, the remaining debt is forgiven—for …