California's school system is under tremendous long-run fiscal pressure; allocating resources efficiently is therefore paramount. Economic analysis--making sure districts and schools are spending their budgets wisely--is the method used to identify effectiveness and efficiency. This method responds to the question educational professionals face:…

Benefit-cost analysis is an important part of regulatory decision-making, yet there are questions as to how often and how well it is performed. Here we examine 28 Regulatory Impact Assessments performed by the federal government on education regulations since 2006. We find many Regulatory Impact Assessments estimated costs, albeit using informal…

Cost, cost-effectiveness, and benefit-cost analysis are methods used by economists to evaluate public policies. Essentially, these methods rely on impact evaluations, that is, research studies of efficacy and effectiveness. However, in most research in education, these cost and impact evaluations are performed separately. This separation creates…

This article reviews the existing literature on the economic and other benefits of attending community college. First, the article reports on the earnings gains across all students and reviews the evidence for subgroups by gender, minority status, and credits accumulated. The article then reviews the methodological challenges associated with…

This paper presents an updated cost-benefit analysis of the High/Scope Perry preschool Program, using data on individuals aged 40. Children were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group. Program costs are compared against treatment impacts on educational resources, earnings, criminal activity, and welfare receipt. Net present values are…

This paper considers the economic impact to the K-12 education system in the state of Wisconsin and in the district of Milwaukee from expanding provision of pre-kindergarten, which is known in Wisconsin as four-year-old kindergarten (4K). The proposed investment would make 4K available to a significantly larger number of children in the state.…

Providing education for young children is an investment in their future. It can also benefit all members of society, because of the spill-over effects from having a better educated population. The critical question is: How much should a society invest in pre-schooling? The focus of this research is on only one of the benefits of pre-school: the…

Increasingly, education systems are being privatized through various changes to organizational structures, to school management, and to funding mechanisms. Yet education remains publicly funded and therefore accountable to taxpayer preferences through voting mandates. This paper investigates the determinants of political support for the…

Steven Barnett and Clive Belfield examine the effects of preschool education on social mobility in the United States. They note that under current policy three- and four-year-old children from economically and educationally disadvantaged families have higher preschool attendance rates than other children. But current programs fail to enroll even…

As an applied discipline based on evidence and guided by economic principles, the ultimate aims of the economics of education should be to influence outside opinion and shape policy. In a major court case based heavily on the economics of education, it can be seen how this knowledge base was interpreted by the New York Supreme Court on…

Pre-kindergarten programs enhance the lives of children and have widespread benefits for society. By improving educational performance, expanding career opportunities, and raising wage-earning potential among participating children, high-quality pre-k reduces crime, increases tax revenues, decreases dependency on public assistance programs, and…

A growing body of evidence shows that quality preschooling is associated with a host of benefits to students, schools, and society at large. These benefits can have a positive impact on a state's budget, too: Children who attend preschool are not only more successful throughout their school careers, they also graduate and go on to college more…

This article derives an updated cost-benefit ratio for the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program, an intensive preschool intervention delivered during the 1960s to at-risk children in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Because children were randomly assigned to the program or a control group, differences in outcomes are probably attributable to program status.…

Arkansas has made important commitments to enhance the quality of and access to early education opportunities for young children, particularly those from disadvantaged families. These commitments are valuable, but they do not yet ensure that all children have access to pre-k programs. At issue is whether it makes economic sense to expand…

This paper reviews the economics of tuition tax credits (TTCs). TTCs can be described in terms of "finance" and "regulation." They allow individuals to spend money on education services and to offset at least a portion of that expenditure against their tax liability. There are few economic studies of tax credits, but they stress two questions:…