Problem: In Colombia, higher education plays a relevant role in developing human capital and equity, giving everyone the opportunity to access higher education. In particular, the government has been supporting public and private universities to open campuses in rural areas where guerrillas, the mafia, and paramilitary groups were fighting the…

Many postsecondary students in the United States exist at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities, such as race, socioeconomic status, (dis)ability, and legal status. Amidst a tumultuous sociopolitical context, a number of higher education institutions in the United States established Undocumented Student Resource Centers (USRCs),…

I study the effect of higher education on lifecycle earnings and focus on three ways in which education may help drive earnings: the effect of higher education on one's skills, the effect on one's ability to accumulate new skills in the future, and the relationship between education and one's likelihood of unemployment. In the first chapter, I…

This dissertation argues for an expansive understanding of academic fiction in the postwar period--specifically as associated with the rise and fall of the "Golden Age of the American University"--beyond the conventional forms of the campus and academic novel. Rather than restricting academic fiction solely to types of novels that are…

I combine micro-level data and structural models to study the interaction between trade, innovation, and human capital. In the first chapter, I examine how China's expansion of college education since 1999 affects innovation and exports' skill content. This policy change is interesting because of its sizable scale: the annual quota on the number…

Human capital development is crucial for economic growth. Policymakers must understand the factors influencing human capital accumulation since they may vary by setting and sector. For example, micro-enterprise employees enhance their skills through on-the-job training or vocational programs. In educational institutions, family and school…

The convergence of a digital transformation and a growing youth population in Africa represents an opportunity to harness digital and demographic dividends to boost human capital development. Higher education institutions play a central role in this process as the demographic dividend is accrued from the rise in the proportion of educated…

This dissertation presents three separate essays. The first two essays explore the gender wage gap and its dynamics in urban China from 1995 to 2018. The first chapter decomposes the gender wage gap based on the observed wage for workers with a precise measure of the hourly wages. The first chapter examines the observed average gender wage gap in…

The problem addressed in this critical autoethnographic study concerns the lack of higher education opportunities for musicians in the state of Sonora, Mexico and the ways in which that impacts music educators from the region. In particular, I look at the different paths music teachers take to follow their vocation by critically examining my…

The competitive nature of today's global marketplace and the increasingly strategic nature of the Human Resource (HR) profession demand a higher level of readiness for its professionals. Unfortunately, there is some disconnect between what is taught in schools and skills HR practitioners and organizations expect. The purpose of the study examined…

Rural students, especially rural Appalachian students, remain underrepresented in higher education (ARC, n.d.). Enrollment declines continue to exist at a majority of institution types across the country as traditional sources of students continue to dry up. Universities and colleges are rediscovering rural areas in order to try to bridge gaps in…

In this dissertation, I use data from Chile to study the determinants of schooling trajectories. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on higher education, Chapter 3 on secondary education, and Chapter 4 on teachers. Chapter 1 explores the role of a socio-emotional ability, self-efficacy, in understanding why students with comparable qualifications transit…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how and why the human, cultural, and social capital (or lack thereof) of students from rural North Carolina counties of persistent poverty impacted their decision to attend a historically black college or university (HBCU). Students from counties of persistent poverty in their first semester…

This paper builds a model of human capital accumulation driven by increasing specialization of the workforce. Individuals increase the efficiency of time dedicated to human capital acquisition by focusing investments on narrower sets of skills. The evolution of secondary and post-secondary curricula in the United States from 1870-2000 confirms the…

Some public university systems are considering abolishing tenure as a cost-saving mechanism, but little is known about how this change may impact organizational outcomes related to faculty retention and research productivity. Using Almendarez' human capital theory, the purpose of this concurrent mixed methods study was to explore how tenure…