Policy Topics

Postsecondary pathways

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Affiliated faculty

Susan M. Dynarski

Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Susan M. Dynarski is a professor at Harvard University, where she holds an appointment at the Graduate School of Education. She recently moved from the University of Michigan, where she held appointments in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Pol...

News

Examining Detroit students' college pathways

May 26, 2021

Academic and non-academic barriers are preventing Detroit high school students from enrolling and succeeding in college. Detroit Students’ College Pathways and Outcomes, a policy brief released by the Youth Policy Lab (YPL) at the University of Michi...

Examining Detroit students' college pathways

Publication

Michigan’s HAIL scholarship program meaningfully changes students’ college trajectory, report shows

May 19, 2021

Research for years has shown that low-income students face unique barriers to applying to colleges, let alone being able to afford tuition and living costs. To address the concern that not enough high-achieving, low-income students were applying to o...

Michigan’s HAIL scholarship program meaningfully changes students’ college trajectory, report shows

Publication

Career and technical education offers pathways for students with disabilities in Michigan

May 13, 2021

Career and Technical Education (CTE) could offer one way of bolstering educational attainment among and providing valuable job skills to students with disabilities (SWD). A new release by the Youth Policy Lab at the Ford School looks at CTE participa...

Career and technical education offers pathways for students with disabilities in Michigan

News

The economic downturn may lead to a change in college major choices

May 5, 2020

Research has shown that in an economic downturn, students often shift to studying more career-oriented subjects like health sciences or engineering. The 2008 recession confirmed this trend: after remaining stable for the previous decade, from 2008 to...

Higher education responds to changing labor markets

News

Dynarski testifies before House Subcommittee on Education and Labor

May 10, 2019

College access has been getting a lot of buzz, but getting more people to enroll in higher education is only the first step. Helping people graduate is proving a larger hurdle, something the House Committee on Education and Labor’s Subcommittee on Hi...

Susan Dynarski explains who struggles most with student debt

News

Dynarski calls the legacy admission bump 'unconscionable'

Oct 30, 2018

As universities hone their admissions processes to reflect fairness and build a diverse student body, legacy students still have an advantage, warns Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times. Susan Dynarski, Ford School professor, agrees. “Legacy prefer...

HAILed it: Tuition-free promise effectively recruits low-income students to U-M

EPI Policy briefs

The Effectiveness of Need-Based Financial Aid: Evidence from Michigan's Tuition Incentive Program

June 1, 2026

Kevin Stange, Kelcie Ferrara-Gerson, Margaret Peterman, Nelson Oviedo, Nathan Sotherland, Nicole Wagner Lam, Marissa Thompson, Katherine Michelmore

The Michigan Tuition Incentive Program (TIP) is a first-dollar financial aid program that supports low-income students in college. TIP typically covers the cost of tuition and fees for an associate's degree at Michigan community colleges and select o...

Students working together on laptop computer

EPI Policy briefs

Michigan's Tuition Incentive Program: Understanding Take-Up

May 13, 2026

Elizabeth Burland, Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija, Xavier Fields, Megan Tompkins-Stange, Jessica Vivar

This report explores the factors that influence take-up of Michigan's Tuition Incentive Program (TIP), one of the state's largest financial aid programs that provides free community college to low-income students based on their childhood participatio...

Other reports

Understanding Michigan’s Reconnect Program Applicants

October 30, 2025

Brian Jacob, Kevin Stange, Alex Bartik, Brad Hershbein, Bryan Stuart

The Michigan Reconnect Program was launched in 2021, providing free community college tuition to Michiganders who are 25 or older and who have not already earned a college degree. In this report, the authors summarize the characteristics of individua...

A young female checking information on a laptop.

EPI Policy briefs

Michigan’s Tuition Incentive Program: An Initial Look at Take-up

January 13, 2025

Kelcie Ferrara-Gerson, Katherine Michelmore, Nathan Sotherland, Kevin Stange, Marissa Thompson

Like many states across the country, Michigan has an ambitious goal for increasing postsecondary attainment. In 2019, Governor Whitmer announced a goal for 60% of the adult population to have a post-secondary certificate or degree by 2030. Increasing...

Photo of students sitting in a hallway cooridor

EPI Working papers

College Majors and Skills: Evidence From the Universe of Online Job Ads

December 1, 2021

Steven Hemelt, Brad Hershbein, Shawn Martin, Kevin Stange

We document the skill content of college majors as perceived by employers and expressed in the near universe of U.S. online job ads. Social and organizational skills are general in that they are sought by employers of almost all college majors, where...

Two students walking on a college campus

EPI Policy briefs

Increasing Economic Diversity at a Flagship University

April 1, 2021

Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija, Susan Dynarski, Katherine Michelmore, Nicole Wagner Lam, Stephanie Owen

Research shows that low-income students face unique barriers to applying to colleges. The HAIL (High Achieving Involved Leader) study at the University of Michigan (U-M) explored whether providing an early, four-year guarantee of free tuition and fee...

EPI Policy briefs

Applications for Financial Aid Lagging Among Low-Income Students

August 1, 2020

Sabrina Solanki, Kevin Stange, Orlando Sanchez Zavala, Catherine Brown

Applications for federal and state financial aid for college are a leading indicator of how many students will enroll in and complete a college degree. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and the Tuition Incentive Program (TIP), a Mi...

Other reports

Dual-Credit Courses and the Road to College: Experimental Evidence from Tennessee

March 1, 2020

Susan Dynarski, Steven Hemelt, Nathaniel Schwartz

Dual-credit courses expose high school students to college-level content and provide the opportunity to earn college credits, in part to smooth the transition to college. With the Tennessee Department of Education, we conduct the first randomized con...

EPI Working papers

Closing the Gap: The Effect of a Targeted, Tuition-Free Promise on College Choices of High Achieving, Low-Income Students

December 1, 2018

Susan Dynarski, Katherine Michelmore, Stephanie Owen, CJ Labissi

Low-income students, even those with strong academic credentials, are unlikely to attend a highly selective college. With a field experiment, we test an intervention to increase enrollment of low-income students at the highly selective University of ...

The University of Michigan's Hail Scholarship

EPI Working papers

Nudges, College Enrollment, and College Persistence: Evidence from a Statewide Experiment in Michigan

May 1, 2018

Joshua Hyman

I conduct a statewide experiment in Michigan with nearly 50,000 high-achieving high school seniors. Treated students are mailed a letter encouraging them to consider college and providing them with the web address of a college information website. I ...

EPI Working papers

The Effect of Labor Market Information on Community College Students' Major Choice

April 1, 2017

Brian Jacob, Rachel Baker, Eric Bettinger, Ioana Marinescu

An important goal of community colleges is to prepare students for the labor market. But are students aware of the labor market outcomes in different majors? And how much do students weigh labor market outcomes when choosing a major? In this study we...

EPI Working papers

Getting Student Financing Right in the US: Lessons from Australia and England

March 1, 2017

Susan Dynarski, Nicholas Barr, Bruce Chapman, Lorraine Dearden

The US student loan system is currently in crisis. US graduates owe $1.3 trillion in student loans; seven million borrowers are in default and even more are in arrears. The impact on borrowers is catastrophic. We argue that this is mainly due to the ...

EPI Working papers

Measuring Instructor Effectiveness in Higher Education

December 1, 2016

Brian Jacob, Kevin Stange, Pieter De Vlieger

Instructors are a chief input into the higher education production process, yet we know very little about their role in promoting student success. This is in contrast to elementary and secondary schooling, for which ample evidence suggests teacher qu...

EPI Working papers

Price Regulation, Price Discrimination, and Equality of Opportunity in Higher Education: Evidence from Texas

December 1, 2016

Kevin Stange, Rodney Andrews

This paper assesses the importance of price regulation and price discrimination to low-income students' access to opportunities in public higher education. Following a policy change in the state of Texas that shifted tuition-setting authority away fr...

EPI Working papers

Tax Benefits for College Attendance

March 1, 2016

Susan Dynarski, Judith Scott-Clayton

National efforts to promote college enrollment are increasingly delivered through tax-based assistance, including tax credits and deductions for tuition and fees, tax-advantaged college savings plans, and student loan interest deductions. This paper ...

EPI Policy briefs

Are Expectations Alone Enough? Estimating the Effect of a Mandatory College-Pre Curriculum in Michigan

January 1, 2016

Brian Jacob, Susan Dynarski, Kenneth Frank, Barbara Schneider

We examine the effects of a rigorous high school curriculum designed to improve educational outcomes and prepare high school graduates for college-level courses. One common refrain in the education reform movement is that expectations play an imp...

EPI Working papers

A New Measure of College Quality to Study the Effects of College Sector and Peers on Degree Attainment

October 1, 2015

Kevin Stange, Jonathan Smith

Students starting at a two-year college are much less likely to graduate with a college degree than similar students who start at a four-year college but the sources of this attainment gap are largely unexplained. In this paper we simultaneously inve...

Two students collaborating on a computer assignment

EPI Working papers

Labor Market Returns to Community College Awards: Evidence from Michigan

January 1, 2015

Susan Dynarski, Brian Jacob, Daniel Kreisman, Mark Wiederspan, Alfredo Sosa, Ioana Marinescu, Eric Bettinger, Rachel Baker

Community colleges serve those whose labor market productivity is critical to national economic progress: first-generation college students, displaced workers, minority students, and low-income students. Yet we know relatively little about employment...

EPI Working papers

Marginal Pricing and Student Investment in Higher Education

December 1, 2014

Steven Hemelt, Kevin Stange

This paper examines the effect of marginal price on students’ educational investments using rich administrative data on students at Michigan public universities. Marginal price refers to the amount colleges charge for each additional credit taken in ...

EPI Working papers

The Missing Manual: Using National Student Clearinghouse Data to Track Postsecondary Outcomes

October 1, 2013

Susan Dynarski, Steven Hemelt, Joshua Hyman

This paper explores the promises and pitfalls of using National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) data to measure a variety of postsecondary outcomes. We first describe the history of the NSC, the basic structure of its data, and recent research interest i...

EPI Working papers

Stand and Deliver: Effects of Boston's Charter High Schools on College Preparation, Entry and Choice

September 1, 2013

Susan Dynarski, Joshua Angrist, Sarah Cohodes, Parag Pathak, Christopher Walters

We use admissions lotteries to estimate the effects of attendance at Boston's charter high schools on college preparation, college attendance, and college choice. Charter attendance increases pass rates on the high-stakes exam required for high schoo...

Student walking down a hallway at school

EPI Working papers

Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Childhood Investments on Postsecondary Attainment and Degree Completion

July 1, 2013

Susan Dynarski, Joshua Hyman, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

This paper examines the effect of early childhood investments on college enrollment and degree completion. We use the random assignment in the Project STAR experiment to estimate the effect of smaller classes in primary school on college entry, colle...

Student paying attention to teacher in class

EPI Working papers

Differential Pricing in Undergraduate Education: Effects on Degree Production by Field

June 1, 2013

Kevin Stange

In the face of declining state support, many universities have introduced differential pricing by undergraduate program as an alternative to across-the-board tuition increases. This practice aligns price more closely with instructional costs and stud...