Student loan debt and defaults have been steadily rising, igniting public worry about the associated public and private risks. This has led to controversial regulatory attempts to curb defaults by holding colleges, particularly those in the for-profit sector, increasingly accountable for the...

In this paper, I estimate the differential effects of compulsory schooling laws on school quality between black and white schools in the United States segregated South. I employ state-level data on length of school terms and pupil–teacher ratios to examine these responses. Other literature has...

School voucher programs have become a prominent aspect of the education policy landscape in the United States. The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program is the only federally funded voucher program in the United States. Since 2004 it has offered publicly funded private school vouchers to nearly...

Policy makers and researchers are intrigued with but also frequently frustrated by each other. Although these differences are understandable and predictable, it is clear that research on a variety of educational issues has been both influential and valuable in the development of policy and...

Several states and the federal government distribute aid for special education programs based primarily on total district enrollment and a fixed aid amount per student, a method called census funding. In this policy brief, we address three questions to help policy makers, educators, and...

This brief utilizes the most recent and rigorous financial aid research to inform state higher education leaders about innovative and effective financial aid practices. By simplifying aid eligibility requirements, improving the aid application process, and engaging in early awareness efforts,...

Policy briefs written by academics—the kind typically published in Education Finance and Policy—should be a crucial source of information for policy makers. Yet too frequently these briefs fail to garner the consideration they deserve. Their authors are too focused on the potential...

Over the last decade many districts implemented performance pay incentives to reward teachers for improving student achievement. Economic theory suggests that these programs could alter teacher work effort, cooperation, and retention. Because teachers can choose to work in a performance pay...

Using data from a randomized experiment and fixed effect quantile regression (FEQR), we examine the effects of having a TFA teacher on test scores across the entire achievement distribution of primary school students in disadvantaged neighborhoods. While we generally find that TFA teachers...

This paper estimates ability peer effects on achievement growth in reading and math. It exploits variation in peer characteristics generated at the transition from primary to secondary school in a sample of Berlin fifth-graders. As will be discussed in detail, this variation is exogenous in...