In Fall 2014, Wellesley College began mandating pass/fail grading for courses taken by first-year, first-semester students, although instructors continued to record letter grades. We identify the causal effect of the policy on course choice and performance, using a...

This paper postulates a life cycle model of university entrepreneurialism at the national level. Based on the analysis, this paper identifies two fundamental sources of such entrepreneurialism: 1) the institutional anchoring of the university of a public-private hybrid form in organization and...

It is increasingly clear that price competition is escalating in the market for higher education. We attempt to understand how price competition would work in higher education and explore the likely long run equilibrium structure of prices in that context. We draw inferences using both...

Data on 2,822 Vanderbilt University graduates are used to investigate alumni giving behavior during the eight years after graduation. A two stage model accounting for incidental truncation is used to first estimate the likelihood of making a contribution and second estimate the average gift size...

This brief paper asks if the proposition that 'growth is good' applies with equal force to private business and to private colleges and universities. An increasing appreciation of the fundamental differences in economic structure between business firms and academic institutions suggests that...

Using Mellon Foundation's College and Beyond survey of alumni from 34 colleges and universities spanning 40 years, Clotfelter found that those who reported that someone "... besides students [took] a special interest in you or your work" also reported greater general satisfaction with their...

Much is known about private returns to education in the form of higher earnings. Less is known about social value, over and above the private, market value. Associations between education and socially-desirable outcomes are strong, but disentangling the effect of education from other causal...

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...

Our paper focuses on the role that the gender composition of the leaders of American colleges and universities- trustees, presidents/chancellors, and provosts/academic vice presidents - plays in influencing the rate at which academic institutions diversify their faculty across gender lines. We...

The purpose of the paper is to explain why and how American universities have taken the lead in continuing education compared to their European counterparts. In a first step we will discuss different notions of continuing education and develop an analytical framework to handle its various forms....