Policymakers enacted a series of reforms in the mid-2000s that significantly expanded benefits in the federal student loan program for students pursuing graduate degrees. These reforms allow students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance for their degrees and use an Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) program that offers loan forgiveness after 20…

This dissertation contains three essays discussing government policy in higher education, the effects of online social networks during college on students after graduating, and how to use search data as a tool to recover characteristics of both products and customers to estimate demand. In the first chapter, co-authored with Shengmao Cao, we study…

Students at America's most renowned private universities face different acceptance rates, college wealth, class sizes, and potential graduate earnings even in comparison with students at the nation's highest-ranking public institutions. The analyses that led to these findings frequently focused on national or state-wide comparisons of public…

Several studies have considered whether American college students' hold "realistic" wage expectations. The consensus is that they do not--overestimation of future earnings is in the region of 40-50%. But is it just college students who overestimate the success they will have in the labor market, or is this something common to all…

Wage differentials across college majors are huge and have been increasing. The type of college education becomes important for college students in terms of future earnings. Understanding the treatment effect of major choice in a certain occupation is difficult because of the sorting behavior and the effect of occupation choice. In order to…

Over the previous two decades, state lawmakers have made two fundamental changes to how they finance their public universities. They have shifted more of the costs of higher education to students and their families through higher tuition rates; and created new grant programs that are not solely based on financial need but require prior…

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of university and vocational education, and other influences on a variety of labour market outcomes for Australian youths aged between 16 and 25. The six labour market outcomes investigated are: occupational status, hourly and weekly earnings, employment, unemployment and full-time work. The…

In the last two decades, we have witnessed a rapid expansion of higher education in Mainland China and Taiwan, recording a significant increase in higher education enrolments in these two Chinese societies. The massification of higher education in China and Taiwan has inevitably resulted in an oversupply of university graduates, with growing…

Student employment subsidies are one of the largest types of federal employment subsidies, and one of the oldest forms of student aid. Yet it is unclear whether they help or harm students' long term outcomes. We present a framework that decomposes overall effects into a weighted average of effects for marginal and inframarginal workers. We then…

Partly as a consequence of the substantial increase in the college wage premium since 1980, a much higher fraction of high school graduates enter college today than they did a quarter century ago. However, the rise in the fraction of high school graduates attending college has not been met by a proportional increase in the fraction who finish.…

This document assesses college effects on earnings 8 to 10 years following graduation from high school. The sample group included male Wisconsin high school seniors in 1957 who had some college experience between 1957 and 1964 and who were alive, not enrolled in any school, and not on active duty with the armed forces in 1964. A total of 1198 men…

The issue of subminimum wages for full-time students who are working part-time is discussed in this publication of the National Student Association. It is suggested that large corporations and institutions of higher education are benefiting from these low wages, while students trying to finance their education during a time of growing inflation…

The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program is essentially a needs-based welfare program. As a needs-based program, SSI must consider the income and resources of the individual applicant or recipient. The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) discusses both income and resources at length. When considering Work Study income it is necessary to…

The U.S. Congress has mandated that the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) produce an annual report to help inform policymakers about the progress of education in the United States. Using data from across the center and from other sources of education data, "The Condition of Education 2015" presents 42 key indicators on…

The difference between male students' actual and potential earnings are analyzed based on data from the 1970 wave of the National Longitudinal Study (NLS) Youths Labor Market Experience and the 1979 NLS Youths cohort. Estimates are provided by full- and part-time enrollments and level, and results compared to other estimates. (Author/MSE)