This paper studies the effect of school closures on student outcomes in the Lithuanian context. Using administrative student-level data from 2013-2017 and propensity score matching, we create a balanced sample of control and treatment groups. In contrast to other studies, we focus on students in the final years of high school, possibly eliciting…

While considerable evidence has accumulated on state-funded merit-based scholarships, research on the effects of specific scholarship design choices has been thin, perhaps in part because cross-state comparisons are difficult. As one of the only states to enact major changes in the design of its merit-based scholarship program, Georgia provides a…

Leveraging rich data on the universe of Texas high school graduates, we estimate how the relationship between geographic access to public two- and four-year postsecondary institutions and postsecondary outcomes varies across race-ethnicity and socioeconomic status. We find that students are sensitive to the distance they must travel to access…

A growing body of social science research investigates whether the economic payoff to a college education is heterogeneous -- in particular, whether disadvantaged youth can benefit more from attending and completing college relative to their more advantaged peers. Scholars, however, have employed different analytical strategies and reported mixed…

Since its introduction in the early 1900s, the codification of vocational education has made explicit that one purpose of the American public education system should be preparation for the workforce. Over three-quarters of high school students participate in present-day career and technical education, nearly half of undergraduate degrees conferred…

We study the effects of the COVID pandemic on educational attainment. By 2022, entry into two-year colleges was 21 percent lower than before the pandemic, with larger declines in Black- and Hispanic-majority colleges. Four-year college entry declined by only 6 percent and then rebounded 4 percent. High school graduation reached an all-time high in…

Federal incentives and requirements under the Obama administration spurred states to adopt major reforms to their teacher evaluation systems. We examine the effects of these reforms on student achievement and attainment at a national scale by exploiting their staggered implementation across states. We find precisely estimated null effects, on…