Because students rely on their subjective expectations when choosing a college major, understanding this process of expectations formation is crucial for education policy recommendations. This paper focuses on how college students form expectations about various major-specific outcomes. I...

This paper proposes and estimates a model of demand for and supply of graduations in tertiary education, which is then used to construct forward-looking scenarios for graduation rates by country. Consistent with evidence that economic returns to education have remained high in spite of rising...

There is widespread interest in universal early education, both to promote child development and to support maternal employment. Positive long-term findings from small-scale early education interventions for low-income children in the US have greatly influenced the public discussion. However,...

In the Netherlands the share of immigrants in the total population has steadily increased in recent decades. The present paper takes a look at wage differences between natives and migrants who are equally educated. This reduces potential skills biases in our analysis. We apply a Mincer equation...

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...

This paper examines the relationship between admission status and college performance. In particular, we analyze admissions data from Hamilton College and find that students who applied through the Early Decision Plan II program have significantly lower GPAs and are less likely to receive...

We examine the impact of US colleges and universities switching from an academic quarter calendar to a semester calendar on student outcomes. Using panel data on the near universe of four-year nonprofit institutions and leveraging quasi-experimental variation in calendars across institutions and...

In this paper we estimate the impacts of the "pathways" chosen by community college students - in terms of desired credentials and fields of study, as well as other choices and outcomes along the paths - on the attainment of credentials with labor market value. We focus on the extent to which...

There is a need to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of higher education in its various aspects, including the area of non-monetary benefits of higher education. Education relates to the wider economic and social effects and human welfare depends partly on earnings but also on...

Professional internships during college are a popular and often highly promoted activity among students. A major issue with estimating the impacts of these programs is that students often take time away from their classes to participate, and gaps in college tenure are thought or have been shown...