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Abstract: Two-year colleges are an important part of the higher education system in the United States but there are concerns as to how attendance at these institutions affects educational attainment and labor market outcomes. This paper uses data from a nationally representative survey to examine the impact of students beginning their college career at a two-year college instead of a four-year college. Treatment effects are estimated using both standard regression techniques as well as propensity score matching. As these estimates may be contaminated because of selection on unobservable characteristics this paper will also employ a number of sensitivity analyses to consider the potential bias. The results show large negative impacts on both educational attainment and labor market outcomes for men and women who begin at a two-year college, even for those students who expect to complete a bachelor''s degree. The evidence from the sensitivity analyses suggest that to eliminate these large effects there would need to be substantial, and arguably implausible, selection on unobservable characteristics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Rising average grades at American universities have prompted fears of “grade inflation.” This paper applies the methods used to estimate price inflation to examine the causes of rising grades. We use rich data from a large public university to decompose the increase in average grades into those components explained by changes in student characteristics and course choices, and the unexplained component, which we refer to as “inflation.” About one-quarter of the increase in grades from 1982 to 2001 was driven by changes in the courses selected by students; enrollment shifted toward historically ‘easier-grading’ departments over time, mechanically increasing average grades. An additional one-quarter of the increase is attributable to increases in the observable quality of students, such as average SAT scores. Less than half of the increase in average grades from 1982 to 2001 appears to arise from the unexplained factors, or “inflation.” These results add to the evidence suggesting that differences in relative grades across departments discourage students from studying in low-grading departments, like math, physics, or engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Our paper focuses on the role that the gender composition of the leaders of American colleges and universities - trustees, presidents, and provosts - play in influencing the rate at which academic institutions diversify their faculty across gender lines. Our analyses make use of institutional level panel data that we have collected for a large sample of American academic institutions. We find that other factors held constant, including our estimate of the “expected” share of new hires that should be female, that institutions with female presidents and provosts, as well as those with a greater share of female trustees, increase their share of female faculty at a more rapid rate. The magnitudes of the effects of these leaders are larger at smaller institutions, where central administrators typically play a larger role in faculty hiring decisions. A critical share of female trustees must be reached before the gender composition of the board matters. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: There is widespread concern, both in the private and public sectors, about perceived declines in U.S. college graduates in STEM fields. In our sample, the proportion of science majors has remained steady over the sample period; however, the number entering our college intending to major in STEM fields has fallen. In this paper we use administrative data from the graduating classes of 2001–2009, roughly 5000 graduates, from a northeastern liberal arts college to model the progression of students through STEM majors. The results suggest that absolute and sometimes relative grades are important, as is the intended major (as reported on the admissions application). AP credits are also strongly correlated to taking a first course, but diminish in the more selected samples. Simulations suggest that if science grade distributions were more like the college average, there would be roughly 2–4% more students progressing in STEM departments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In earlier work, the authors found that only 10% of the students at 28 of the nation''s most selective private colleges and universities came from families in the bottom 40% of the US family income distribution and that there is a larger share of low-income high-ability students in the national population than in the student bodies of these selective private schools. Using SAT and ACT data, this paper finds that inadequate attention to geography and the incidence of ACT tests in their search and recruiting activities has contributed to a bias against low-income students at these schools. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]