Student Outcomes

The central aim of this project is to estimate the causal effect of students’ college major choices  on their postsecondary and labor market outcomes. The combination of a research design that can identify causal effects of major choice with rich administrative data that allow us to track students from high school through college and into the labor market is novel in the higher education literature and will provide new and important evidence on how college major choices affect students during college and...

Virtual education is touted as a promoter of both quality and access for students across the country. Several states require that students enroll in at least one online course before they graduate, and many states have recently passed legislation encouraging the use of online learning. Yet despite the burgeoning popularity of virtual schools, there remains a stark lack of evidence that these methods actually improve educational opportunity. Our project will fill this gap by exploring how access to the online sector affects students’ academic performance, as well as the effect of various...