New study out in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis with Will Zahran, Hope Allchin, @justinortagus.bsky.social @kellyrosinger.bsky.social @robertkelchen.com. We find that tying state funding to degrees in high-demand fields like STEM and health didn't boost completion doi.org/10.3102/0162...

I have a new working paper examining how academic schools within universities allocate resources. Using data from HelioCampus, I find that schools cut staff positions first during difficult times and that there are huge variations in delivery costs across universities.

An Analysis of Academic School Spending in Higher Education

Academic schools, such as colleges and their constituent departments within larger universities, are increasingly being expected to increase revenues and reduce expenditures in a challenging financial...

edworkingpapers.com

I have a new AERA Open article on the prevalence and effects of differential tuition policies at public universities. About half of public universities have adopted differential tuition, but any benefits of increased completions disproportionately flow to White students. Check it out!

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

I have a new open-access article in the Journal of Postsecondary Student Success that examines whether colleges respond to accountability pressures by trying to increase enrollment. At least in the short term, that may have been the case. journals.flvc.org/jpss/article...

Just posted updated version of our DID textbook! We now have drafts of all chapters, including the one on general designs! Now you can tell your friends still on X that they are DID-outdated :-) Happy easter for those of you that celebrate it. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Heartbreaking to see announcements of major layoffs at most research organizations that have played a vital role in supporting federal statistics for education and developing high-quality evidence about what policies/practices actually work. Below are just a few examples from my LinkedIn feed.

I like a good discussion of administrative spending in higher ed, but this piece misses the mark. The reason why big universities have more non-instructional than instructional staff is the research and healthcare enterprises. IPEDS staffing data are not a good measure for "administrative bloat."

We streamlined six new DID-like estimators and created this tutorial for implementation in R. yiqingxu.org/packages/fec... Hope you no longer need to spend months figuring out what these estimators are and how to use them.

1/ I am seeing a lot of comments on the slashing of NIH support along the lines of “universities should just spend their huge endowments.” I’m the last person to cheer on the institutional stratification rising endowments have contributed to. But let me explain why this is not a solution.

Here are some more thoughts on this topic. robertkelchen.com/2025/02/12/b...

Budget Freezes Are Coming for Higher Education

During the last three weeks, I have thought a lot about the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. By the end of the first full week of March, it was clear to me that colleges would c…

robertkelchen.com

Robert Kelchen@robertkelchen.com · last yr.

I'm waiting for the first university to implement a broad hiring freeze due to uncertainty about federal funding and policies. These discussions are undoubtedly happening behind the scenes, but nobody wants to say it publicly yet. It feels a lot like March 2020 across much of higher ed.

Thanks to @lpeblog.bsky.social for the invitation to write about what policy scholars should do if "policy" is permanently broken. There are lots of good answers, but we can't afford to ignore the question.

In This Brave New World, Does Scholarship Still Matter?

If the recent past is no longer a useful guide to seeking change in the present, what good is policy-adjacent scholarship?

lpeproject.org

There are a lot of new master's degree programs, and I have been concerned that they generate a return for the college but not for students. However, my newest working paper finds that new master's programs generate similar outcomes to longstanding programs (and even a bit better at privates).

In an ideal world we would have a government statistical agency doing this work of counting college students However Congress has banned the existence of a federal “unit record” data system bc higher ed lobbyists pressed them to Wouldn’t want transparency and accountability after all

Prof Dynarski@dynarski.bsky.social · 2y ago

Yikes www.studentclearinghouse.org/news/nationa...

California's governor is proposing sizable cuts to colleges while holding student financial aid funds flat. This is yet another example of states slowly shifting higher ed support from colleges to students, which seems to be a political winner.

Wins and losses for higher ed in California budget

California governor Gavin Newsom’s $322 billion budget plan, revealed in greater detail Friday, came with some notable wins and losses for higher ed. The proposed 2025–26 fiscal year budget slashed on...

insidehighered.com

Does starting a Division III college football program benefit the institution? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "the effect on enrollment is indistinguishable from zero...the proportion who are women falls...unable to provide evidence that the drawing of the endowments slowed"

Does starting a Division III college football program benefit the institution?

I ask whether the addition of a college football team playing at the Division III level effects three dimensions to an institution’s success: enrollme…

sciencedirect.com

1/12. Lots of engagement with this Walmart research post. I wanted to follow up on one of the themes I noticed in reactions. This will be a longer thread than I usually write, but I want to weave together a few related points on science (and communication about it), public engagement, and policy.

Neil Lewis, Jr.@neillewisjr.bsky.social · 2y ago

"Walmart makes the places it operates in poorer than they would be if it had never shown up at all. Sometimes consumer prices are an incomplete, even misleading, signal of economic well-being." Fascinating studies on the broader effects of Walmart: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

I have a new @nberpubs.bsky.social working paper out with @dubravkaritter.bsky.social and @dougwebberecon.bsky.social that examines the extent to which college closures can be predicted. Using machine learning, we improve on traditional models. But it's still hard to predict exact closure dates.

Predicting College Closures and Financial Distress

Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

nber.org

Oh yay, this paper is finally out at AERA Open! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

I wrote a @chronicle.com essay highlighting some warning signs that a college or academic program might be in financial trouble. It's crucial for students, faculty, and staff to keep their eyes open to see potential issues as soon as possible so they can make plans.

Is Your College About to Close?

Here are the telltale signs of financial distress.

chronicle.com

College rankings season concludes today with the release of the US News rankings. Start with their detailed methodology page before looking at where your favorite college ranks (this is what you should always do with rankings). www.usnews.com/education/be...

My latest: I wrote about some of the recent budget slashing at regional publics and how federal Covid aid may have helped make the situation worse.

This Is Why Some Regional Public Colleges Are In So Much Trouble

Deep cuts at public comprehensive colleges have often made news, but this year they seem deeper and more brutal than ever.

chronicle.com

The key takeaway from my InformEd States team's latest brief: while how states fund public higher ed can marginally influence student outcomes, how much they fund matters a lot more.

Designing state funding formulas for public higher education to center equity | Brookings

The level of funding allocated to colleges and universities is substantially more important for student outcomes than how funding is allocated.

brookings.edu

A reminder: I'm searching for two associate/full professors to join me in my thriving department. Leadership studies (undergraduate-focused): apply.interfolio.com/130210 Higher education (focused on starting an EdD): apply.interfolio.com/130214 Application review begins 10/16!