The college-educated are more likely to vote than are those with less education. Prior research suggests that the effect of college attendance on voting operates directly, by increasing an individual's interest and engagement in politics through social networks or human capital accumulation. College may also increase voting indirectly by leading…

Colleges offer remedial coursework to help students enrolling in post-secondary education who are not adequately prepared to succeed in college-level courses. Despite the prevalence of remediation, previous research presents contradictory findings regarding its short- and long-term effects. This paper uses a doubly robust inverse probability…

This study explores the relationship between college major, occupation, and early-career annual earnings for the years 2008 to 2010 using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1997 (NLSY97). I provide estimates of the effect of college major on earnings for those with bachelor's degrees, associate degrees, and some college but no…

This study explores the relationship between college major, occupation, and early-career annual earnings for the years 2008 to 2010 using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1997 (NLSY97). I provide estimates of the effect of college major on earnings for those with bachelor's degrees, associate degrees, and some college but no…

In this article, we consider how the economic return to a college education varies across members of the U.S. population. Based on principles of comparative advantage, scholars commonly presume that positive selection is at work, that is, individuals who are most likely to select into college also benefit most from college. Net of observed…

Vocational education is a large part of the high school curriculum, yet we have little understanding of what drives vocational enrollment or whether these courses help or harm early careers. To address this deficiency, we develop a framework for curriculum choice, taking into account ability and preferences for academic and vocational work. We…

Using a sample of college graduates from the NLSY97, we introduce a new approach to assessing wage benefits of STEM training, STEM jobs, and the match between the two: rather than classify individuals dichotomously as STEM or non-STEM, we measure the STEM-intensities of both their college coursework and their occupational requirements. While the…

While research consistently finds positive earnings returns to educational attainment, there is little evidence on postsecondary education's impact on other employment-related outcomes. Yet nonpecuniary returns to schooling are particularly important in the United States, where fringe benefits are typically tied to employment and there is a great…

In this paper, benefits and costs are estimated for a universal pre-K program, provided by Tulsa Public Schools. Benefits are derived from estimated effects of Tulsa pre-K on retention by grade 9. Retention effects are projected to dollar benefits from future earnings increases and crime reductions. Based on these estimates, Tulsa pre-K has…

This report examines the academic and civic behavior outcomes of teenagers and young adults who have engaged deeply with the arts in or out of school. In several small-group studies, children and teenagers who participated in arts education programs have shown more positive academic and social outcomes in comparison to students who did not…

What are the economic consequences of college noncompletion? Given escalating student debt, is "some college" still worth it? This article applies augmented inverse probability weighting to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to estimate the causal effect of college noncompletion on income and financial hardship. Although…

This study investigated the relation between building human capital of former dropouts and their occupational standing and the interaction effects with individual characteristics. By applying the growth curve model, this study highlighted the factors that lead high school dropouts to enhance their occupational standing. An increment in the work…

Helping young people prepare to engage in work and life as productive adults is a central challenge for any society. Yet, many young people in the United States find that the path from education to employment and economic security in adulthood is poorly marked or inaccessible. As a result, those from low-income and less educated families have…

Parental income and wealth contribute to children's success but are at least partly endogenous to parents' cognitive and noncognitive skills. We estimate the degree to which mothers' skills measured in early adulthood confound the relationship between their economic resources and their children's postsecondary education outcomes. Analyses of…

Most quantitative analyses in workforce education are affected by missing data. Traditional approaches to remedy missing data problems often result in reduced statistical power and biased parameter estimates due to systematic differences between missing and observed values. This article examines the treatment of missing data in pertinent…