During the late 1990s public pension funds across the United States accrued large actuarial surpluses. The seemingly flush conditions of the pension funds led legislators in most states to substantially improve retirement benefits for public workers, including teachers. In this study we examine...

Despite the widespread provision of retiree health insurance for public sector workers, little attention has been paid to its effects on employee retirement. This is in contrast to the large literature on health-insurance-induced "job-lock" in the private sector. I use the introduction of...

The organization of the Prussian school system still affects the German education system of today. Against the background of end-of-nineteenth-Prussia this thesis analyzes how education funding emerges in a federal system and how it affects prosperity and nation building in a setting of...

We replicate and extend prior work on Florida’s Bright Futures merit aid scholarship to consider its effect on college enrollment and degree completion. We estimate causal impacts using a regression discontinuity design to exploit SAT thresholds that strongly determine eligibility. We find no...

The article deals with problems of financing the higher education. It is well-known that the government plays a vital role in providing the financial aid for students, but study indicates that efficiency of the supporting programs is in question. This study has shown that nowadays money is...

Between 2000 and 2010, U.S. public postsecondary schools experienced widespread and uneven changes in funding from state and local appropriations. We estimate that statewide funding cuts lead to a decrease in public attendance that is offset by an increase in for-profit attendance, with no...

As student numbers in the Irish higher education system continue to grow, the escalating funding crisis within the system needs to be urgently addressed. This conversation must also consider the dynamic relationships and funding limitations possessed by a range of system stakeholders including...

The ICL model as outlined in current policy discussions cannot work in Ireland due to the high probability of default. The Irish system is neither small enough or large enough to make an ICL work. As it stands in any ICL scenario a minimum of 10 years of losses would have to be absorbed by the...

This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the funding mechanisms for higher education across sixteen countries which builds upon existing work on educational institutions, educational outcomes and welfare regimes. We focus upon the current financing dilemma within the Irish higher education...

Outside of apprenticeships, allocations of public funds across vocational education and training (VET) courses are often made on the basis of government forecasts, with limited competition between (mostly public) colleges. This centralised model is often blamed for stifling responsiveness to...