Colleges and universities play an important role in training a skilled workforce and generating knowledge for society, but we know little about exactly how universities choose the skills and knowledge they provide to students. In my dissertation, I introduce novel data that allow me to document new facts about the supply of courses at a large…

The mental health needs of college students continue to increase, causing more students than ever to seek treatment for their mental health problems on college campuses. These common mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and stress, result in the rising demand for mental health services and present numerous challenges for higher…

This dissertation studies the market for higher education and impacts of higher education policy on the market. In the first chapter, I estimate the short-run elasticity of supply of higher education using the rollout of state merit grant programs as plausibly exogenous variation in student demand for in-state higher education. I find that public…

Citywide initiatives to promote educational opportunities are levers for social change (Appio et al., 2019) that also risk reproducing social inequalities (Godec et al., 2021). Out-of-school time networks have developed in many cities to promote access to youth programs and activities that foster development, bolster academic outcomes, and open…

This qualitative method single case study explores the phenomenon of a racially tense campus climate at the University of Missouri Columbia, a Predominantly White Midwestern Institution. At the forefront of the media regarding student and athlete protests, leading to the resignation of senior level administrators, African American students put…

There is a recent rise in demand for international rotations in medical school, during which U.S. schools send medical students to another country for an immersive educational experience, but there is little research surrounding the characteristics, ethics, and institutional support for these types of rotations. This study examines the types of…

Community colleges are well-positioned to provide formal education and early field experiences to Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers, particularly the non-traditional students who are balancing multiple obligations of family, work, and education. The increasing demand for online coursework formats by community college students has grown…

During the last two decades of the twentieth century, for-profit higher education in the United States grew at an extraordinary pace. By the close of the century, for-profit institutions accounted for a substantial proportion of degree-seeking students in the United States--an enrollment share that, until relatively recently, expanded at…

This dissertation consists of three essays using publicly reported internal control deficiencies to examine agency conflicts in the unique organizational setting provided by nonprofit charter schools. In my first essay, I find evidence that increased agency conflicts in nonprofit charter schools are "not" associated with increased…