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Jel Classification:I23 

Journal Article
The Changing Role of Family Income in College Selection and Beyond

Previous literature has established that the role of family income has grown substantially at predicting college entry decisions when comparing the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (e.g., Belley and Lochner (2007)). In this article, I further examine the changing role of family income as a determinant of college quality choice, degree attainment, and post-schooling earnings. I document that the role of family income has remained important and relatively stable at explaining college quality choice, its importance increasing only for the choice of four- over two-year ...
Review , Volume 105 , Issue 3 , Pages 198-222

Report
Underemployment in the early careers of college graduates following the Great Recession

Though labor market conditions steadily improved following the Great Recession, underemployment among recent college graduates continued to climb, reaching highs not seen since the early 1990s. In this paper, we take a closer look at the jobs held by underemployed college graduates in the early stages of their careers during the first few years after the Great Recession. Contrary to popular perception, we show that relatively few recent graduates were working in low-skilled service jobs, and that many of the underemployed worked in fairly well paid non-college jobs requiring some degree of ...
Staff Reports , Paper 749

Discussion Paper
Anchor Institution Strategies in the Southeast: Working with Hospitals and Universities to Support Inclusive Growth

Engaging universities and hospitals to address economic disparities—often referred to as anchor institution strategies—has been understudied in the Southeast. The author examines efforts to launch anchor institution strategies in the Southeast. First, the author reviews the anchor institution concept in economic development, noting how the strategy has evolved from single institutions focusing on a set of neighborhoods to expanding to multi-institution collaboratives that attempt to tackle economic inequalities at a city or regional level. Second, the author offers case studies of New ...
FRB Atlanta Community and Economic Development Discussion Paper , Paper 2019-02

Journal Article
The Rise and Fall of College Tuition Inflation

The cost of college tuition increased rapidly from 1980 to 2004 at a rate of about 7 percent per year, significantly outpacing the overall inflation rate. Since 2005, college tuition inflation has slowed markedly and has averaged closer to 2 percent per year for the last few years. Understanding what drives tuition inflation is important for predicting future tuition as well as personal income mobility. However, untangling the various supply and demand factors influencing college tuition can be challenging. {{p}} Brent Bundick and Emily Pollard document changes in college tuition inflation ...
Economic Review , Issue Q I , Pages 57-75

Working Paper
WHERE DO STUDENTS GO WHEN FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES LOSE FEDERAL AID?

Recent federal investigations and new regulations have resulted in restrictions on for-profit institutions? access to federal student aid. We examine the enrollment effects of similar restrictions imposed on over 1,200 for-profit colleges in the 1990s. Using variation in regulations linked to student loan default rates, we estimate the impact of the loss of federal aid on the enrollment of Pell Grant recipients in sanctioned institutions and their local competitors. Enrollment in a sanctioned for-profit college declines by 53 percent in the five years following a sanction. For-profit ...
Working Papers , Paper 17-12

Working Paper
Predicting College Closures and Financial Distress

In this paper, we assemble the most comprehensive dataset to date on the characteristics of colleges and universities, including dates of operation, institutional setting, student body, staff, and finance data from 2002 to 2023. We provide an extensive description of what is known and unknown about closed colleges compared with institutions that did not close. Using this data, we first develop a series of predictive models of financial distress, utilizing factors like operational revenue/expense patterns, sources of revenue, metrics of liquidity and leverage, enrollment/staff patterns, and ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2025-003

Working Paper
Who Has the Time? Community College Students’ Time-Use Response to Financial Incentives

We evaluate the effect of performance-based scholarship programs for postsecondary students on student time use and effort and whether these effects are different for students we hypothesize may be more or less responsive to incentives. To do so, we administered a time-use survey as part of a randomized experiment in which community college students in New York City were randomly assigned to be eligible for a performance-based scholarship or to a control group that was only eligible for the standard financial aid. This paper contributes to the literature by attempting to get inside the ...
Working Paper Series , Paper WP 2020-03

Working Paper
Making the (Letter) Grade: The Incentive Effects of Mandatory Pass/Fail Courses

In Fall 2014, Wellesley College began mandating pass/fail grading for courses taken by first-year, first-semester students, although instructors continued to record letter grades. We identify the causal effect of the policy on course choice and performance, using a regression-discontinuity-in-time design. Students shifted to lower-grading STEM courses in the first semester, but did not increase their engagement with STEM in later semesters. Letter grades of first-semester students declined by 0.13 grade points, or 23% of a standard deviation. We evaluate causal channels of the grade ...
Working Paper Series , Paper WP 2022-55

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