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In 1993, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts dramatically overhauled its K-12 education system and created a new school finance formula, building an educational accountability structure to ensure every child has access to a high-quality education. The Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA) established academic standards in core subjects, mandated assessments to measure student outcomes on those standards, and established a system for holding schools accountable when students failed to meet basic expectations. This system has helped Massachusetts' public schools become the highest performing in the country. Student outcomes in all tested subjects and across demographic groups have improved steadily over time, but disparities in achievement and attainment exist between the Commonwealth's most privileged students and their less privileged counterparts, many of whom are black or Hispanic. Without the MERA and its requirement to assess every student and publish aggregate academic outcomes, policymakers may not understand the extent of disparity or how to address it as student outcomes data are integral to understanding where Massachusetts' public schools have been, where they are going, and how they can get there. This paper illustrates the importance of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act and how it has positively impacted students over time. It explains why the current accountability system evolved as it did and why preserving the most important aspects of that system is critical if the state is going to fulfill its constitutional obligation to educate all children to a high common standard.

Following up on an individual-level randomized controlled trial of a Dana Center Math Pathways (DCMP) model, this study assessed longer-term impacts on students' math completion, academic progress, and academic attainment. The version of the DCMP that was assessed in this study diversified the developmental and college-level math course content that students take, separating it into distinct pathways that better aligned with their career interests. It also streamlined developmental math sequences into a one-semester developmental course for all students, regardless of placement level, and implemented evidence-based curricula and pedagogy to engage students in active problem solving that was pertinent to real-life situations. The study, which followed 1,411 students from four Texas community colleges and ten campuses, found that, in the five years after random assignment, program group students were consistently more likely to successfully complete their first college-level math courses than control group students. The study did not find impacts after five years on the number of overall college credits that students accrued or on the likelihood that students attained a credential or transferred to a four-year college.

Nationally, more than 75% of individuals who are credentialed to teach are prepared in traditional college- or university-based teacher education programs (TEPs). But the college and employment pathways that prospective teachers take to TEP enrollment and completion have not been comprehensively examined. A better understanding of how credentialed individuals find their way into TEPs helps us understand the sources of new teacher supply early in the prospective teacher pipeline. With that in mind, we analyze pathways into and through TEPs using historical postsecondary and unemployment insurance data from Washington state. We find that the pathways are quite varied with around 40% of bachelor's-level TEP completers spending at least some time in community colleges and less than 40% enrolling and finishing at the same university directly after high school. Pathways to master's TEP completion are even more varied, with almost half of the completers having prior employment experience. For researchers, this varied landscape raises important questions about the relationship between pathways, candidate persistence, and eventual job performance. For policymakers, the results suggest that efforts to recruit the next generation of teachers need to look beyond the pool of students already enrolled at a 4-year university to include students at 2-year colleges or in the labor force who might be interested in entering a TEP.

The paper presents a first global investigation of the longer-term inequality implications of COVID-19 by examining the effect of school closures on the ability of children from different countries and backgrounds to engage in continued learning throughout the pandemic, and their implications for intergenerational mobility in education. The analysis builds on the data from the Global Database of Intergenerational Mobility, country-specific results of the learning loss simulation model using weekly school closure information from February 2020 to February 2022, and high-frequency phone survey data collected by the World Bank during the pandemic to assess the incidence and quality of continued learning during periods of school closures across children from different backgrounds. Based on this information, the paper simulates counterfactual levels of educational attainment and corresponding absolute and relative intergenerational educational mobility measures with and without COVID-19 impacts, to arrive at estimates of COVID-19 impacts. The simulations suggest that the extensive school closures and associated learning losses are likely to have a significant impact on both absolute and relative intergenerational educational mobility in the absence of remedial measures. In upper-middle-income countries, the share of children with more years of education than their parents (absolute mobility) could decline by 8 percentage points, with the largest impacts observed in the Latin America region. Furthermore, unequal access to continued learning during school closures across children from households of different socioeconomic backgrounds (proxied by parental education levels) leads to a significant decline in relative educational mobility. [This report was prepared by the World Bank Poverty and Equity Global Practice & Education Global Practice.]

This paper assesses the reliability and validity of cognitive and socioemotional skills measures and investigates the correlation between schooling, skills acquisition, and labor earnings. The primary data from Pakistan incorporates two innovations related to measurement and sampling. On measurement, the paper develops and implements a battery of instruments intended to capture cognitive and socioemotional skills among young adults. On sampling, the paper uses a panel that follows respondents from their original rural locations in 2003 to their residences in 2018, a period over which 38 percent of the respondents left their native villages. In terms of their validity and reliability, our skills measures compare favorably to previous measurement attempts in low- and middle-income countries. The following are documented in the data: (a) more years of schooling are correlated with higher cognitive and socioemotional skills; (b) labor earnings are correlated with cognitive and socioemotional skills as well as years of schooling; and (c) the earnings-skills correlations depend on respondents' migration status. The magnitudes of the correlations between schooling and skills on the one hand and earnings and skills on the other are consistent with a widespread concern that such skills are under-produced in the schooling system. [This report was prepared by the World Bank Group's Development Research Group, Development Economics. Funding was provided by RISE and World Bank's Strategic Research Program Fund.]

While the Pell Grant covers a substantial proportion of college tuition for low-income students, it has covered only two full-time semesters per year and has not included any support for summer courses through most of its history. As research has shown that continuous enrollment throughout the year increases college persistence and completion, the summer Pell (SP) program was added during the summer of 2009 and allowed eligible low-income students to receive an additional grant for summer tuition and eligible costs. The SP was eliminated in 2011 and then restored in 2017. Using administrative data on community college students in New York City, our difference-indifferences analysis results from both periods show that SP-eligible students had a higher retention rate in the fall of the second year, had higher associate and bachelor's degree attainment rates, and had higher earnings gains up to nine years from college entry compared to SP-ineligible students. Heterogeneous analysis indicates that the SP benefits were driven by Black students and older students.

In March 2022 a random sample of one third of Stride K12 families (37,856) were emailed a survey asking parents a series of questions about their families' experiences in their children's current Stride K12-powered online schools and their experiences in their children's former schools. 1,949 parents completed the survey, and of that total, 1,613 had Stride K12 students who had attended another school prior to attending their current online schools. These families reside in one of 28 states that have Stride K12-powered schools that were included in the survey. The purpose of the survey, and this report, are to learn more about what parents value regarding the education of their children, why they chose to enroll their children in a Stride K12-powered online school, their degree of satisfaction with various aspects of their current online schools, and their satisfaction levels with their children's Stride K-12 powered schools as compared with their former schools, when applicable. The survey results indicate that parents have overwhelmingly positive views of how their children are faring at their Stride K12-powered online schools and that their children who did migrate from other schools faced a variety of challenges in their former schools.

This study examines the emerging relationship between microcredentials and qualification systems. Information gathered through an online survey among European VET providers, national authorities, employee and employer organisations was complemented by in-depth country case studies and interviews with Cedefop's ReferNet network. Questions of whether and how microcredentials should be related to established qualification systems are at an early stage of consideration in most countries; the focus is on better defining and standardising their role within national qualifications systems. Existing trends towards modularisation and the recognition of prior learning provide potential avenues for realising the benefits of microcredentials in terms of flexibility and responsiveness, while also ensuring their quality for learners and employers. There is still significant debate over how to deal with microcredentials, and how to avoid potential negative effects, such as encouraging a shift away from holistic education towards short-duration learning based around reduced skill sets. Microcredentials are a complex phenomenon, particularly with regard to their relationship to qualifications. In recent years, there has been an acceleration in the availability and use of microcredentials in the labour market, raising questions about their relationship to VET and to qualification systems. The proliferation of microcredentials of different types across various sectors, occupations, education sectors and levels and countries, along with variations between countries in the nature of qualification systems -- which are undergoing change -- make this a complex landscape to research and analyse. To date there has been a lack of data at EU level informing decision-making in this area. This report aims to be a first step towards filling some key gaps in the knowledge around these topics, addressing three main research questions.

We use data on high school students and teachers from Washington state to connect the observable characteristics of career and technical education (CTE) teachers to various non-test outcomes (absences, disciplinary incidents, grade point average, grade progression, and on-time graduation) of students with and without disabilities in their classrooms. We find that students participating in CTE tend to have better non-test outcomes when they are assigned to a CTE teacher from the state's Business and Industry pathway--designed for CTE teachers with 3 years of industry experience but no formal teacher preparation--relative to being assigned to a traditionally prepared CTE teacher. These results can inform efforts in Washington and across the country to develop and support similar alternative routes to CTE teacher licensure.

This government's Levelling Up mission for schools is that, by 2030, 90% of children will leave primary school having achieved the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, up from 65% in 2019. In addition, this white paper sets an ambition to increase the national GCSE average grade in both English language and in maths from 4.5 in 20193 to 5, for all secondary school pupils by 2030. In this report it is estimated the economic returns associated with achieving these ambitions. To achieve the Levelling Up mission, around one in four pupils will need to make sufficient improvements in Key Stage 2 (KS2) attainment by 2030 to reach the expected standard. It is estimated that the size of the attainment improvement will need to be equivalent to 0.87 of a standard deviation, or around 10 months of progress.

We estimate the education and earnings returns to enrolling in technical two-year degree programs at community colleges in Missouri. A unique feature of the Missouri context is the presence of a highly-regarded, nationally-ranked technical college: State Technical College of Missouri (State Tech). Compared to enrolling in a non-technical community college program, we find that enrolling in a technical program at State Tech greatly increases students' likelihoods of graduation and earnings. In contrast, there is no evidence that technical education programs at other Missouri community colleges increase graduation rates, and our estimates of the earnings impacts of these other programs are much smaller than for State Tech. Our findings exemplify the importance of institutional differences in driving the efficacy of technical education and suggest great potential for high-quality programs to improve student outcomes.

Following a landmark court ruling in 2005, more than half of Germany's universities started charging tuition fees, which were subsequently abolished until 2015. We exploit the unusual lack of grandfathering in these policies to show that fees increase study effort and degree completion among incumbent students. However, fees also decrease first-time university enrollment among high school graduates. Combining this enrollment impact with the effect on completion, we find that fees around the zero-price margin have only little effect on overall educational attainment. We conclude by discussing policies targeting the separate effect margins of fees and caution against a general abolition. [Funding for this report was provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation).]

This paper studies the causal impacts of public universities on the outcomes of their marginally admitted students. I use administrative admission records spanning all 35 public universities in Texas, which collectively enroll 10 percent of American public university students, to systematically identify and employ decentralized cutoffs in SAT/ACT scores that generate discontinuities in admission and enrollment. The typical marginally admitted student completes an additional year of education in the four-year sector, is 12 percentage points more likely to earn a bachelor's degree, and eventually earns 5-10 percent more than their marginally rejected but otherwise identical counterpart. Marginally admitted students pay no additional tuition costs thanks to offsetting grant aid; cost-benefit calculations show internal rates of return of 19-23 percent for the marginal students themselves, 10-12 percent for society (which must pay for the additional education), and 3-4 percent for the government budget. Finally, I develop a method to disentangle separate effects for students on the extensive margin of the four-year sector versus those who would fall back to another four-year school if rejected. Substantially larger extensive margin effects drive the results.

We present a model of endogenous schooling and earnings to isolate the causal effect of parents' education on children's education and earnings outcomes. The model suggests that parents' education is positively related to children's earnings, but its relationship with children's education is ambiguous. Identification is achieved by comparing the earnings of children with the same length of schooling, whose parents have different lengths of schooling. The model also features heterogeneous preferences for schooling, and is estimated using HRS data. The empirically observed positive OLS coefficient obtained by regressing children's schooling on parents' schooling is mainly accounted for by the correlation between parents' schooling and children's unobserved preferences for schooling. This is countered by a negative, structural relationship between parents' and children's schooling choices, resulting in an IV coefficient close to zero when exogenously increasing parents' schooling. Nonetheless, an exogenous one-year increase in parents' schooling increases children's lifetime earnings by 1.2 percent on average.

Nearly two decades into the "completion agenda" in higher education, many community colleges have adopted collegewide reforms designed to improve stubbornly flat rates of student success and address persistent equity gaps. The longer-term effects of such collegewide reforms may take years to observe. In the meantime, college leaders need to know whether changes they make in the short run are associated with longer-term student success. Measuring the progress and effects of institutional reform is particularly vital in economically important STEM fields. Drawing on administrative records from transfer-intending community college starters across three states, this study develops and explores potential indicators of early STEM program momentum. We find that a relatively simple set of STEM momentum metrics--notably early completion of calculus or non-math STE coursework specified in statewide STEM transfer pathways and, to a lesser degree, the prerequisites to such courses--are reliable indicators of subsequent STEM transfer and bachelor's degree attainment. Our findings provide support for the use of the STEM momentum metrics to formatively evaluate reforms aimed at strengthening STEM transfer outcomes and closing equity gaps in STEM bachelor's degree attainment.

High school graduation rates in the United States are at an all-time high, yet many of these graduates are deemed not ready for postsecondary coursework when they enter college. This study examines the short-, medium-, and long-term effects of remedial courses in middle school using a regression discontinuity design. While the short-term test score benefits of taking a remedial course in English language arts in middle school fade quickly, I find significant positive effects on the likelihood of taking college credit-bearing courses in high school, college enrollment, enrolling in more selective colleges, persistence in college, and degree attainment.

This paper summarises the literature that has linked education and economic growth. It begins with an overview of the key concepts in neoclassical and endogenous growth models, and discussion on how these have been tested in the data. Issues with respect to specification, the measurement of human capital and causality are discussed, together with studies that have sought to addresses these. A more recent and growing literature that explores the links between firm level human capital and productivity, including externalities, is then summarised. Beyond studies that link human capital to economic performance directly, there are numerous studies that have explore the relationships between human capital and the determinants of growth including investment, technology adoption and invention. Key findings from this literature are drawn out, together with a summary of the literature that has linked the activities of universities (key producers of both human capital and innovation) to their local economies. The paper concludes with discussion of policy implications stemming from this body of research, and promising areas for future research.

A number of school districts and states have implemented transition intervention programs designed to help high school students graduate ready for college. This study estimates the effectiveness of a transition program implemented statewide in Kentucky for high school seniors called Targeted Interventions (TI). Using 11 years of linked panel data, this study tracks the college progression of seven cohorts of students as they move from high school into college. Using a difference-in-regression discontinuity design, we estimate the program's impact on college credit attainment and transfer as well as the extent to which the program has helped reshape pathways through college. We find that the TI program significantly increased the likelihood that students would take at least 15 credits during the first term in college, a key measure that has been shown to be predictive of college completion. These early effects, however, do not translate into statistically significant impacts on the likelihood of transfers from a 2-year to a 4-year college, or the likelihood of earning enough credits to graduate from college. We discuss some possible explanations for why the TI program did not lead to observable improvements in college transfer or credit accumulation.

Food insecurity, a condition of limited access to nutritious food, is a critical issue for college students' health and well-being. In this report, we present results from our project that examines the long-term effects of college students' food insecurity on future socioeconomic status, wealth, and food insecurity using nationally representative data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Our study population included 1,574 individuals who were enrolled in college between 1999-2003, aged 16-29 years old during college enrollment, and remained in the sample through 2015-17. We examined the associations of interest using a combination of linear, logistic, multinomial logistic, and fixed-effects regression models, adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics measured concurrent with college enrollment or during childhood. In the sample, the prevalence of food insecurity during college was 14.9%. College food insecurity was associated with lower odds of college completion and lower likelihood of obtaining a Bachelor's degree or a graduate or professional degree. These associations were more pronounced among first-generation college students. College food insecurity was also associated with lower mean labor wage income and lower wealth accumulation (including home equity) across subsequent survey waves between 2005-2019. Finally, college food insecurity was associated with a higher prevalence of food insecurity in the later adult years (measured in 2015-17). Results suggest that college food insecurity has long-term implications for socioeconomic outcomes in adulthood. Future research should focus on the role of programs and policies that can break the cycle of chronic food insecurity and poverty over the life course.

This study examined the performance of English learners (ELs) taking the ACT® test with testing supports, as compared to ELs and non-ELs taking the ACT without supports or accommodations. Contextual factors were also explored, including high school experiences and demographic characteristics such as low-income and first-generation college student status that may be associated with their scores. Results indicate that ELs tended to score substantially lower than non-ELs, and ELs who tested with supports tended to score lower than ELs who tested without supports. ELs in both groups, particularly those testing with supports, tended to take fewer core academic courses, fewer honors or AP courses, and had lower high school grades than non-ELs. ELs in both groups, particularly those testing with supports, were also more likely to be non-White, low income, and/or first-generation college students. Regression analyses found that demographic and contextual factors, along with limited English proficiency, played a substantial role in predicting the performance of ELs taking the ACT, both those testing with and without supports. It is important that ELs are provided with a rigorous education that includes instruction in both English language and core academic content to ensure that they have equitable opportunities and experiences as compared to their English proficient peers.

Largely overlooked in the empirical literature on gentrification is the potential impact that school closures play in this process. This study examines whether the weakening of the neighborhood-school connection brought about by school closures affects the likelihood that nearby neighborhoods experience gentrification. Integrating longitudinal data from the U.S. Census with data on every urban school closure that occurred nationwide between 2000 and 2012, this study finds that college-educated White households were far more likely to gentrify Black neighborhoods following the closure of a local school. In particular, school closures increased the likelihood that the most racially segregated Black neighborhoods gentrified by 9 percentage points, a process that corresponded during this period to an average loss in these neighborhoods of roughly 200 Black residents. Results suggest that school closures do not simply alter the educational landscape, school closures are also emblematic of a larger spatial and racial reimagining of U.S. cities that dispossess and displaces communities of color.

Public two-year colleges serve as an important access point for two out of every five students enrolled in postsecondary education. However, only 40 percent of community college students earn a postsecondary credential of any kind within six years, limiting their opportunities for advancement. Hoping to increase student retention and success, many colleges are developing and scaling up evidence-based practices that engage students more effectively. Significant evidence suggests that high-impact educational practices (HIPs)--including learning communities, service learning, and other practices that deeply engage students--can enhance learning and boost academic attainment, particularly among students who are traditionally underserved in higher education. This report highlights efforts of the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) to advance quality and equity in higher education by increasing the number of students who experience high-quality, high-impact practices, and measuring the results of these efforts.

Which occupations are best for wellbeing? There is a large literature on earnings differentials, but less attention has been paid to occupational differences in non-pecuniary rewards. However, information on both types of rewards is needed to understand the dispersion of wellbeing across occupations. We analyse subjective wellbeing in a large representative sample of UK workers to construct a measure of "full earnings", the sum of earnings and the value of non-pecuniary rewards, in 90 different occupations. We first find that the dispersion of earnings underestimates the extent of inequality in the labour market: the dispersion of full earnings is one-third larger than the dispersion of earnings. Equally, the gender and ethnic gaps in the labour market are larger than data on earnings alone would suggest, and the true returns to completed secondary education (though not to a degree) are underestimated by earnings differences on their own. Finally, we show that our main results are similar, and stronger, for a representative sample of US workers. [Funding for this report was provided by an Écoles Universitaires de Recherche, EUR (University Research Schools, EUR) grant.]

In Illinois, there are more than 21,000 children and youth in foster care. Approximately 26% of these individuals are 13 and older (Illinois Department of Children & Family Services [IDCFS] 2021). Although career and technical education (CTE) programs are offered at both secondary and postsecondary educational levels, little to no data about current and former foster youths' CTE program matriculation and attainment is available. Considering that foster youth are identified as a disadvantaged population under Perkins V, it is imperative to address the need for: (1) an increased awareness of and access to CTE programs among foster youth; and (2) systematic tracking of Illinois foster youths' enrollment, retention, and graduation from CTE programs at the postsecondary educational level. This brief highlights two sections within the Perkins V Act: Section 7, Definitions, which recognizes current and former foster youth as a special population; and Section 112, Accountability, which provides an overview of the state and local reporting requirements relative to CTE program outcomes for identified special populations. The brief then provides recommendations to improve statewide tracking of foster youths' postsecondary educational attempts and attainment in Illinois CTE programs.

Work-based learning (WBL) has risen rapidly in the policy agenda over recent years in the European Union. Efforts to strengthen WBL, particularly in vocational education and training (VET), are increasingly common throughout European countries. This report analyses the 2016 EU labour force survey (EU-LFS) ad hoc module, which covers the topic of young people on the labour market. The report focuses on WBL in formal initial education and training. It aims to provide EU-wide updated statistical evidence addressing key aspects: how many young graduates experienced work-based learning as part of their highest education attained, particularly in VET and in tertiary education; who they are; and how well they do on the labour market, in comparison with their counterparts who have not participated in WBL.

A primary focus among colleges implementing student success reforms has been to increase overall rates of completing any credential and to reduce racial and socioeconomic equity gaps in such completion rates. The focus on general completion may overlook inequities in the type of program students complete, which is particularly significant given the wide variety of credentials offered at community colleges--from short-term certificates to transfer-oriented associate degrees that may lead to bachelor's and graduate degree programs--and the resulting variation in labor market returns among completers. Our study examines racial/ethnic stratification among community college students as they enter and progress through different programs leading to higher- and lower-paying jobs. Specifically, we develop a discrete-time survival analysis using longitudinal enrollment and transcript data on first-time-in-college, credential-seeking community college students from a state with more than 20 community colleges. We track student enrollment, completion, and transfer for up to nine years and examine when equity gaps in completion emerge. We also measure the student achievement of academic milestones (such as levels of credit accrual) along educational pathways that are associated with higher rates of credential completion and transfer over the long term. Results suggest that a significant gap in the likelihood of bachelor's degree completion between Black and White students emerges more episodically, while the gap between Hispanic and White students develops earlier and remains more consistent over time. Our results also suggest that, while all students generally benefit from the attainment of academic milestones such as gaining credit momentum or completing pre-transfer associate degrees, doing so disproportionately benefits Black and Hispanic students.

In both Canada and the United States, immigrants constitute a disproportionately large share of the supply of university-educated labour trained in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. This article examines the Canada-U.S. differences in the occupational skill utilization and earnings of STEM-educated immigrant workers. Using data from the 2016 Census for Canada and the combined 2015 to 2017 American Community Survey, this analysis focuses on immigrants with a university degree in a STEM field who were aged 25 to 64 and arrived as adults. Over one-half of STEM-educated immigrant workers in both countries held non-STEM jobs. In Canada, only about 20% of these immigrants with non-STEM jobs worked in occupations that required a university education, compared with 48% in the United States. There was a large earnings gap between STEM-educated immigrants and native-born workers in Canada, even after adjusting for sociodemographic differences, while no corresponding earnings gap existed in the United States. The earnings gap in Canada was particularly large for STEM-educated immigrants holding non-STEM jobs. Possible explanations for these results are discussed.

In Canada, immigrants represented more than half of the population in the prime working ages with at least a bachelor's degree in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields of study in 2016. They accounted for three-quarters of engineering and computer science graduates with a master's or doctorate degree. This paper examines the skill utilization and earnings of employed STEM-educated immigrants by field of study and degree level. Compared with the Canadian-born with similar levels of education and in similar fields of study, immigrants with a bachelor's degree had considerably lower skill utilization rates and earnings outcomes than those of doctoral degree holders. This is mostly because immigrant doctoral graduates are more likely to be educated in a Western country. By field of study, immigrant engineering graduates, particularly at the bachelor's level, had relatively weaker skill utilization rates and earnings outcomes; immigrant computer science graduates did somewhat better. The slightly more than half of STEM-educated immigrants who did not find a STEM job had the weakest skill utilization rates and earnings outcomes. Much of the gap between the earnings of immigrant and Canadian-born graduates was associated with differences in country of education. STEM immigrants educated in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom or France had outcomes similar to the Canadian-born.

Using value-added models, we find that high schools impact students' self-reported socio-emotional development (SED) by enhancing social well-being and promoting hard work. Conditional on schools' test score impacts, schools that improve SED, reduce school-based arrests, and increase high-school completion, college-going, and college persistence. Schools that improve social well-being have larger effects on attendance and behavioral infractions in high school, while those that promote hard work have larger effects on GPA. Results suggest that adolescence can be a formative period for socio-emotional growth, high-school impacts on SED can be captured using self-report surveys, and SED can be fostered by schools to improve longer-run outcomes. These findings are robust to tests for plausible forms of selection.

Although qualitative research suggests that school choice and other interventions are more beneficial for moderately disadvantaged than severely deprived students, the subject has barely been explored by quantitative studies with either observational or experimental designs. We estimate experimentally the impact of a voucher offer on college attainment of poor minority students by household income and parental education. Estimates are obtained from a 1997 private, lottery-based voucher intervention in New York City. National Student Clearinghouse provided 2017 postsecondary outcomes. Positive impacts on moderately disadvantaged students do not extend to the severely deprived. [Additional support for this research was provided by the Hubbard Family Foundation and the Kovner Foundation.]

The rapidly growing supply of university-educated workers from both immigration and domestic educational institutions, coupled with relatively slack demand for educated labour, has raised concerns about skill use in the Canadian economy. This study uses census data from 2001 to 2016 to compare trends in over-education among recent immigrants and Canadian-born youth. The study showed that only about one-half of the growth in university-educated workers over this 15-year period was matched with growth in jobs requiring a university education. University-educated recent immigrants became more concentrated in jobs requiring less than a university education. In comparison, Canadian-born youth with a university degree became less likely to work in jobs requiring high school or less education.

This study compares the differences in the mismatch between the education and occupations of immigrants in Canada and the United States, operationalized by over-education. It further explores how the cross-country differences may be related to the supply of and demand for university-educated immigrants and the way they are selected. Using comparable data and three measures of over-education, this study found that university-educated recent immigrants in Canada were much more likely to be overeducated than their U.S. peers. The over-education rate gap between recent immigrants and the native-born was much more pronounced in Canada than in the United States. In addition, while labour market demand was associated with a lower level of over-education in both countries, a greater supply of university-educated recent immigrants was positively associated with a likelihood of over-education among recent immigrants in Canada, but not in the United States. Furthermore, in Canada, the over-education rate was significantly lower among immigrants who were admitted through some form of employer selection (e.g., immigrants who worked in skilled jobs in Canada before immigration) than those who were admitted directly from abroad. Overall, this study provides insight into how the immigration system interacts with broader aspects of the labour market to shape the labour market outcomes of immigrants.

Reducing the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) is one of the targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8. This has become an important indicator that is monitored by many countries and international organizations since youth NEET are prone to long-term economic and social difficulties. Although Canada-centric studies on youth NEET exist, they tend to focus on sociodemographic characteristics and on educational and employment outcomes. This report aims to expand the information on Canadian youth NEET by examining various sociodemographic and psychosocial characteristics. It also aims to explore whether different subgroups of youth NEET experience similar psychosocial characteristics. This study is based on data from three recent Canadian Community Health Survey cycles (2015 to 2017). This study indicated various sociodemographic and psychosocial differences between Canadian youth NEET and non-NEET, and also highlighted the diversity among different youth NEET subgroups. Future research should continue to identify risk and protective factors related to NEET status by distinguishing among the subgroups of this population.

The paper studies the impact of financial aid on long-term educational attainment and labor market outcomes in Colombia. In 2014, the government launched a large-scale and generous student loan program called "Ser Pilo Paga." It offered full tuition coverage to students admitted to one of 33 government-certified high-quality universities known for superior test scores, graduation rates, and per-student spending. Notably, completing a bachelor's degree converted the loan into a grant. To qualify, students must score in the top 10% of the standardized high school exit exam and have below-median household wealth. Using RD and DD methodologies, we use nationwide administrative microdata linking all high school test takers, postsecondary attendees, and formal workers to estimate impacts up to eight years after high school. Financial aid improves college enrollment, quality, and attainment, particularly in STEM-related fields. The earnings gains are substantial, growing, and driven partly by high-quality universities improving students' skills, as demonstrated by their performance on Colombia's college graduation exam. A welfare analysis using the MVPF yields over $4.8 per dollar of government spending. Lastly, the program narrowed socioeconomic gaps in college attainment, skill development, and earnings among academically similar students without adversely affecting non-recipients, thereby promoting equity and efficiency.

College-educated mothers spend substantially more time in intensive childcare than less educated mothers despite their higher opportunity cost of time and working more hours. Using data from the 2010-2013 and 2021 waves of the Well-being Module of the American Time Use Survey, we investigate this puzzle by testing the hypothesis that college-educated mothers enjoy childcare more. We find that among all mothers, spending time in childcare is associated with higher positive feelings compared to spending time in other activities. However, college-educated mothers experience no more positive feelings and no fewer negative feelings during intensive childcare than other mothers. Moreover, college-educated mothers report substantially fewer positive feelings for time spent in management activities and substantially more negative feelings for time spent in educational activities with their child. Findings are robust to controlling for a rich set of covariates, mother fixed effects, and simulations to account for selection into intensive childcare.

Better-educated workers form many more long-distance job matches, and they move more quickly following local employment shocks. I argue this is a consequence of larger dispersion in wage offers, independent of geography. In a frictional market, this generates larger surpluses for workers in new matches, which can better justify the cost of moving - should the offer originate from far away. The market is then "thinner" but better integrated spatially. I motivate my hypothesis with new evidence on mobility patterns and subjective moving costs; and I test it using wage returns to local and long-distance matches over the jobs ladder. [This paper supersedes an earlier (2015) version entitled "Why are Higher Skilled Workers More Mobile Geographically? The Role of the Job Surplus" (CEP Discussion Paper 1338). Additional support was provided by the Royal Economic Society.]

Over the last two decades, Mexico has experienced macroeconomic stability, an open trade regime, and substantial progress in education. Yet average workers' earnings have stagnated, and earnings of those with higher schooling have fallen, compressing the earnings distribution and lowering the returns to education. This paper argues that distortions that misallocate resources toward less-productive firms explain these phenomena, because these firms are less intensive in well-educated workers compared with more-productive ones. It shows that while the relative supply of workers with more years of schooling has increased, misallocation of resources toward less productive firms has persisted. These two trends have generated a widening mismatch between the supply of, and the demand for, educated workers. The paper breaks down worker earnings into observable and unobservable firm and individual worker characteristics, and computes a counterfactual earnings distribution in the absence of misallocation. The main finding is that in the absence of misallocation average earnings would be higher, and that earnings differentials across schooling levels would widen, raising the returns to education. A no-misallocation path is constructed for the wage premium. Depending on parameter values, this path is found to be rising or constant, in contrast to the observed downward path. The paper concludes arguing that the persistence of misallocation impedes Mexico from taking full advantage of its investments in the education of its workforce. [This paper is a product of the Strategy and Operations Team, Development Economics Vice Presidency.]