This paper reviews recent evidence on the labor market returns to credit accumulation, certificates, and associate degrees from community colleges. Evidence is collated from estimates of earnings gaps across college students using large-scale, statewide administrative datasets from eight states. Six of these states were partners of the Center for…

The Great Recession was one of the sharpest economic downturns of the past century, with significant impacts across the U.S. labor market. Over past decades, one key feature of the U.S. labor market has been the high and stable returns to education. In this paper I estimate the returns to education for large samples of young workers in Arkansas…

Until the late 1990s, "vocational education" in traditional trades such as carpentry, cosmetology, and auto mechanics was often the presumptive high school placement for low-performing students considered ill-suited for college. However, in the past two decades, policymakers and educators have reconsidered what is now referred to as…

Examines teachers' union activity in large school districts in the 11 states without collective-bargaining legislation, using a supply-and-demand model of municipal labor markets and least-squares regression analysis. Average teacher salary in districts with collective-bargaining agreements was 9.5% higher than average salary in districts without…

This statewide study concerning salary supplementing activities of Arkansas public school teachers is based on a sample of approximately 1,500 teachers who completed a 33-item questionnaire. Foremost among the concerns of the researchers were such topics as: (1) How many teachers are working outside the field? (2) How much time is spent in these…

This document reports on the resettlement of Hmong refugees in Fort Smith, Arkansas: what their employment experiences have been, which resettlement efforts have been successful, and how current resettlement efforts could be altered to improve the Hmong's long-term adjustment. The report is part of a larger, national project on Hmong resettlement.…

To determine how well rural youths were adjusting to modern society, a study on educational and occupational aspirations of male high school seniors from two counties in Southwest Arkansas was begun in 1965 and completed in 1972. A major finding in the first stage was that 70% of the 165 seniors (121 Whites, 44 Blacks) overaspired for their…