Community colleges have long been recognized for their potential in providing access to post-secondary education for students of limited means. Indeed, the recent #FreeTuition movement is built on community colleges as a cornerstone. Previous research on the value of community colleges in...

Sexual violence has long been a problem on college campuses, yet federal policies to protect students have largely been ineffectual. Spurred by student grievances, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights recently began investigating how sexual assault cases were handled at a...

In this paper, I make use of data from the 2000 follow-up of the National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS) post-secondary education transcript files to extend what is known about the value of education at community colleges. I examine the effects of enrollment in community colleges on...

The number of Americans raising grandchildren has been rising steadily. In this paper, we add to what is known about the implications of this trend by focusing on the economic effects of raising a grandchild. We make use of a unique data set compiled from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics along...

Do students perform better on statewide assessments in years in which they have more school days to prepare? We explore this question using data on math and reading assessments taken by students in the 3rd, 5th and 8th grades since 1994 in Maryland. Our identification strategy is rooted in the...

In this paper we review recent trends in tuition at public universities and estimate impacts on enrollment. We use data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System on all public four-year colleges and universities from 1991 to 2007 and illustrate that tuition increased dramatically...

In this paper, I consider the impact of the expansion of exams students must pass in order to graduate high school on dropout rates. Exit exams, as these tests are known, have become more common, and more difficult. These exams are controversial, with opponents claiming they drive marginal...

Poor air quality has been shown to harm the health and development of children. Research on these relationships has focused almost exclusively on the effects of human-made pollutants, and has not fully distinguished between contemporaneous and long-run effects. This paper contributes on both of...

Though there is clinical evidence linking pollution induced inflammatory factors and major depression and suicide, no definitive study of risk in the community exists. In this study, we provide the first population-based estimates of the relationship between air pollution and suicide in the...

How have changes in the costs of enrolling full-time at public two- and four-year colleges affected student decisions about whether and where to enroll in college? Using local differences in the growth of tuition at community colleges and public four-year colleges we study the impact of public...