We document the characteristics of children and young adults identified in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics as having a learning disability and study whether legislative changes in diagnosis criteria have had a noticeable effect determining who receives a diagnosis. We further document that children and young adults identified as a having a…

Every year, 2 million first-time, full-time undergraduate students enter a degree-granting postsecondary institution in the United States, but more than one-third leave college before obtaining a college degree. This report's analysis shows that job loss has an adverse effect on college persistence for 18- to 24-year-old US working students, that…

Connecticut's public K-12 education system relies heavily on local funding, resulting in substantial disparities between affluent districts and low-income districts with a large proportion of socioeconomically disadvantaged students who are more costly to educate. Despite recent improvements, the existing state aid formula has been criticized for…

Test-score data show that both low-income and racial-minority children score lower, on average, on states' elementary-school accountability tests compared with higher-income children or white children. This report explores the relationship between racial and socioeconomic test-score gaps in New England metropolitan areas and two factors associated…

Equal educational opportunity is a core American value. Yet many children of low-income or minority racial or ethnic status attend public schools that are lower quality compared with those that white children or high-income children attend. And data indicate that, on average, low-income or minority children score lower on states' elementary-school…

After being sued for inequity and inadequacy in school funding, many states have reformed their education aid policies. Using Connecticut as an example, this paper shows how to design a state education aid formula that can effectively address funding inequity and inadequacy while taking political feasibility into account. It first develops a…

The abrupt closing of college campuses this spring due to the spread of COVID-19 upended the lives of students and their families and disrupted the higher education sector. The impact of these closures and the questions of whether and how to reopen campuses this fall have been widely discussed. Less attention has been paid to the potential…

Facing legal challenges and public pressures, Connecticut needs an objective and rigorous study of its public education costs. This study is the first to estimate the cost function of Connecticut public K-12 education and to evaluate the equity and the adequacy in the state's school spending based on regression-estimated education costs. It finds…

Public higher education produces many benefits that are vital to the New England economy, but it is increasingly at risk following years of state budget cuts. In 2017 in New England, real per-student state funding for higher education was lower than it was in 2008, with a double-digit decline in each of the region's states except Maine. States…

In aggregate, state appropriations are the largest revenue source for public higher education in the United States. However, these appropriations have significantly declined over past decades, drawing serious concerns about the potential negative impact on schools and students. This paper provides a more comprehensive study of the effects of state…

While state appropriations are the largest revenue source of the U.S. public university systems, they have declined significantly over the past several decades. Surprisingly, there is little empirical work on the effect of state appropriation cuts on the research productivity of public universities. Helping fill that gap, this paper is the first…

We develop a new measure of relative debt transparency by comparing the amount of state debt reported in the annual Census survey and the amount reported in the statistical section of the state Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). GASB 44 requires states to start reporting their total debt in the CAFR statistical section in FY 2006.…

This paper assesses the extent to which Rhode Island's workforce lacks skills that are in demand among the state's current and potential employers and, if so, whether such a skills gap or labor market "mismatch" significantly restrains employment growth in the state. Using an index developed by Sahin et al. (2014), we find that…

This paper investigates the impact of immigration on the college enrollment of U.S. natives. Many studies have focused on the effect of increased demand for schooling by immigrants on the enrollment of natives. However, changes in immigrant labor supply may also affect native enrollment by changing local market prices. Using U.S. Census data from…

This paper examines whether a rise in house prices that occurs immediately prior to children entering college has an impact on their earnings as adults. Higher house prices provide homeowners with additional funds to invest in their children's human capital. The results show that a 1 percentage point increase in house prices, when children are 17…