The abrupt closing of college campuses this spring due to the spread of COVID-19 upended the lives of students and their families and disrupted the higher education sector. The impact of these closures and the questions of whether and how to reopen campuses this fall have been widely discussed. Less attention has been paid to the potential…

Since the passage of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act in 1993, the Commonwealth has been seen as a national leader in education reform. The legislation introduced statewide learning standards and the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) tests, and provided large increases in funding for K-12 education. We explore the high…

In this dissertation, I explore inequalities in higher education and at the intersection of higher education and the labor market. Chapter 1 explores the employment effects of strengthening anti-discrimination laws for minority workers in the context of two recent changes to the Missouri Humans Rights Act. First, I use data from Missouri's circuit…

Background/Context: Parents and policymakers have long believed that some schools are more effective than others. State testing requirements under No Child Left Behind helped publicize the widely understood fact that schools differ substantially in their students average test scores and treated such scores as key proxies for school quality. More…

As COVID-19 rapidly changes the economic landscape throughout the country, higher education institutions (HEIs) are facing new, constantly evolving challenges. To address these challenges, federal and state governments are quickly drafting laws and regulations that are impacting colleges and universities, and their employees. This article briefly…

Higher education institutions--as major employers of the workforce, purchasers of goods and services, managers of real estate, and attractors of external investment--are frequently the subject of research measuring economic impact. This research often falls into one of two categories: (1) institution-focused studies that measure the monetary…

America's education system, from kindergarten through the state university, is designed to produce college graduates. Those who stop short of at least a community-college diploma are widely regarded as failures, or at least victims of a failed system. Yet most Americans fall into this category, and current trends offer little hope for improvement.…

For southern New England, the middle-skills gap is projected to become acute by 2020, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Historically and currently, the middle-skills labor pool in Massachusetts has been significantly below national rates and has been recently experiencing a decline. Closing the middle-skills gap depends on improving…

The NEAIR (North East Association for Institutional Research) 2012 Conference Proceedings is a compilation of papers presented at the Bethesda, Maryland conference. Papers in this document include: (1) Can a Marketing Campaign Increase Response Rates to Online Course Evaluations? (Kimberly Puhala); (2) Developing Community College Peer…

This study compared dual-degree master of social work/master of public health (MSW/MPH) and MSW-only graduates with 3 or more years of postgraduate experience. Thirty graduates from an MSW/MPH program were matched with 30 MSW-only graduates. All subjects were randomly selected from the alumni directory and interviewed via telephone. Results showed…