Senior Economist Jonathan Rothwell of Gallup, presents data on employment outcomes for college graduates from different types of colleges. He also provides findings from the Gallup-USA Funds Associate Degree Graduates Survey which shows there are a number of student experiences that are highly predictive of overall life-evaluation. He cites the…

In this article, the authors use a large, recent, and accessible data set to examine the effect of economics major on individual earnings. They find a significant positive earnings gain for economics majors relative to other majors, and this advantage increases with the level of education. Their findings are consistent with Black, Sanders, and…

This paper assesses the impact of the mismatch between a college major and job on college graduates' early career earnings using a sample from China. On average, a major-job mismatched college graduate is found to suffer from an income loss that is much lower than the penalty documented in previous studies. The income losses are also found to be…

In this paper, the authors examine the relative labor market gains for first-time college students who enrolled in the North Carolina Community College System in 2002-03. The medium-term returns to diplomas, certificates, and degrees are compared with returns for students who accumulated college credits but did not graduate. The authors also…

Understanding how the behaviors and actions of building principals impact student achievement is a major goal of educational leadership, in which both direct and indirect factors exist. There is a wealth of research which focuses on the importance of school leadership and demonstrates that building level administrators are second only to classroom…

This research paper presents lecturers' experience of using social media in higher education courses. The research methodology used a survey approach. The research instrument was a questionnaire about lecturers' experience of using social media in higher education courses. Thirty-one lecturers completed the questionnaire. The data were scored by…

This third installment of "Hard Times" updates the previous analyses of college majors, unemployment, and earnings over the Great Recession. While there is wide variation by college majors, hard times have become better times for most college graduates, but the recovery is far from complete. Hard times are becoming better times for most…

Overskilling is the phenomenon whereby a worker's skills are underutilised in his or her job. Overskilled workers are employed, but they are underutilised and mismatched, in that their skills and abilities are not a good match with the requirements of the job. Overskilling can lead to decreased wages and job satisfaction, which suggests that the…

The Virginia Plan for Higher Education, now in its sixth year, charts a course to make Virginia the best-educated state by 2030. The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia developed The Virginia Plan as part of its statutory role to "advocate for and promote the development and operation of an educationally and economically sound,…

Studies examining the wage effect of overeducation have generated very consistent results. Their findings suggest that, for workers with similar educational attainment, workers who are overeducated for the job suffer from significant wage penalties. However, most studies use cross-sectional data, implicitly assuming that workers are randomly…

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.…

At this moment, roughly 12 million Americans are unable to find work, with more than 40 percent of that number unemployed for six months or more. At the same time, current estimates put the number of job vacancies in this country at 3 million per month. The most popular explanation for this apparent paradox, the one put forth by former President…

In recent years concerns about inequality have been growing in prominence within UK policy debates. The many causes of inequality of earnings and income are complex in their interactions and their tendency to reinforce one another. This makes inequality an intractable or "wicked" policy problem, particularly within a contemporary context…

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the return to pre-immigration education for non-western immigrants, and explain why it is so low. Returns to one extra year of education is three times higher for ethnic Norwegians than for non-western immigrants. Using the method "Over-Required-Under" (ORU) education approach, we reveal that…

Human capital investment is a necessary condition for improving labour market outcomes in most countries. Empirical studies to investigate human capital and its linkages on the labour demand side are, however, relatively scarce due to limitations of firm-level data-sets. Using firm-level data from the Thai manufacturing sector, this paper aims to…