Are public policies effective in enhancing gender balance in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduate education? Although the literature is rich in studies that prescribe micro-level interventions to promote gender balance in specific STEM areas or institutions, there are surprisingly few studies that quantitatively…

Previous studies of the role of college students' funding sources in their educational outcomes have focused on individual funding sources and have not paid much attention to the mixing of multiple sources. As rising college tuition has heightened the financial burden on college students, the use of multiple funding sources has become an adaptive…

California's K-12 funding and instructional policies for English learners (ELs) have changed significantly over the past 2 decades, including new requirements for instructional materials specific to ELs statewide and a new school funding system that funds ELs at a higher rate. These major policy shifts held the potential to change student learning…

Think College REPORTS present descriptive data in narrative and tabular form to provide timely information to researchers, practitioners, and policymakers for review and use. This report provides program- and student-level data reported by TPSIDs (Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities) during the…

The global economic crisis exacerbated by U.S. sequestration has resulted in funding for research and development either remaining flat or declining slightly. By comparison, collectively, countries in Europe and Asia have expanded R&D investments. The purpose of this study was to understand the characteristics of and extent to which…

This study sought to better understand the relationship between access to spending money and students' social relationships with peers through a survey and four follow-up focus groups at a public regional comprehensive university. Using sense of belonging as a conceptual lens, findings demonstrated that spending money was a significant influence…

This article reports on a study that investigated the education pathways of 464 young people. We were interested in the effects of New Zealand citizenship and Pacific ethnicity on pathways so compared findings for three groups residing in Australia: Pacific youth with New Zealand citizenship, Pacific youth with Australian citizenship, and…

Drawing on data from a three-year study (2008-2011) of partnerships of schools and colleges delivering the 14-19 Diplomas in England, this article examines how the dynamics of local partnerships were shaped by a contradictory policy landscape in which some policies strongly promoted collaborative working whilst others reinforced competition…

In 2007, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges launched a performance funding policy called the Student Achievement Initiative (SAI) both to improve public accountability by more accurately describing what students achieve from enrolling in community colleges and to provide incentives to colleges through financial rewards…

In 2009 the Obama administration announced a focused commitment to turn around 5,000 of the United States' chronically lowest-performing public schools as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This commitment came with $3 billion in funding for the School Improvement Grant program, or SIG, along with new guidelines to ensure…

My dissertation investigates the effects of education policy on academic achievement. I focus on state and federal policies that seek to influence how teachers and school administrators educate their students, and I evaluate those policies' effects on academic achievement. Chapter 1 examines the effects of a compositional shift in a school's…

The Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarship (TELS) program was designed to meet the unique needs of the state of Tennessee while also incorporating the hallmark elements of existing merit-based aid programs in other states. Developed through a process involving elected officials and members of the academic community, the TELS program aims to…

Tennessee needs to continuously increase its degree productivity by four percent every year from now until 2025. In the midst of this need for increased degree production, the state's current economic realities indicate public institutions will receive little to no new state appropriated revenues for the foreseeable future. The Master Plan Annual…

In 2001, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a 10-year, multi-million dollar initiative, the Washington State Achievers Program (WSA), to increase opportunities for low-income students to attend postsecondary institutions in Washington State. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation granted funds to the College Success Foundation…

The last decade has seen increased interest in various aspects of the UK doctorate. This report brings together issues arising from national policy developments, the doctoral researcher cohort, the diversification of doctoral level provision in the UK and the development of the third cycle in the Bologna process. Through discussions with key…