Showing papers by "Sarah Turner published in 2019"

Public Universities: The Supply Side of Building a Skilled Workforce

Abstract: Over the past few decades, public universities have faced significant declines in state funding per student. We investigate whether these declines affected the educational and research outcomes of these schools. We present evidence that declining funding induced public universities to shift toward tuition as their primary source of revenue. Selective research universities enrolled more out-of-state and international students who pay full fare and increased in-state tuitions, moderating impacts on expenditures. Public universities outside the research sector had fewer options to replace stagnating state appropriations, requiring diminished expenditures and increased in-state tuitions. The evidence we present suggests that the cuts negatively affected degree attainment at the undergraduate and graduate levels. While the evidence on research is mixed, there are indications that the impact of spending declines on research outcomes may become evident over a longer time period

Public Universities: The Supply Side of Building a Skilled Workforce

Abstract: Over the past few decades, public universities have faced significant declines in state funding per student. We investigate whether these declines affected the educational and research outcomes of these schools. Declining funding induced public universities to shift toward tuition as their primary source of revenue. Selective research universities enrolled more out-of-state and international students who pay full fare and increased in-state tuitions, moderating impacts on expenditures. Public universities outside the research sector had fewer options to replace stagnating state appropriations, requiring diminished expenditures and increased in-state tuitions. We find suggestive evidence that cuts have negatively affected research, and more definitive evidence that they adversely affected degree attainment at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Missed Exams and Lost Opportunities: Who Could Gain From Expanded College Admission Testing?:

Abstract: When students with the capacity to succeed in a 4-year college do not take a college admission test, this represents a potential loss of opportunity for students and colleges alike. However, the co...

Measuring Opportunity in U.S. Higher Education

Abstract: In identifying whether universities provide opportunities for low-income students, there is a measurement challenge: different institutions face students with different incomes and preparation. We show how a hypothetical university's “relevant pool”–the students from whom it could plausibly draw–affects popular measures: the Pell share, Bottom Quintile share, and Intergenerational Mobility. Using a proof by contradiction, we demonstrate that universities ranked highly on the popular measures can actually serve disproportionately few low-income students. We also show the reverse: universities slated for penalties on the popular measures can actually serve disproportionately many low-income students. Furthermore, the Intergenerational Mobility measure penalizes universities that face relatively equal income distributions, which are probably good for low-income students, and rewards universities that face very unequal income distributions. In short, by confounding differences in university effort with differences in circumstances, the popular measures could distort university decision making and produce unintended consequences. We demonstrate that, with well-thought-out data analysis, it is possible to create benchmarks that actually measure what they are intended to measure. In particular, we present a measure that overcomes the deficiencies of the popular measures and is informative about all, not just low-income, students.

Public Universities: The Supply Side of Building a Skilled Workforce

Abstract: Over the past few decades, public universities have faced significant declines in state funding per student We investigate whether these declines affected the educational and research outcomes of these schools We present evidence that declining funding induced public universities to shift toward tuition as their primary source of revenue Selective research universities enrolled more out-of-state and international students who pay full fare and increased in-state tuitions, moderating impacts on expenditures Public universities outside the research sector had fewer options to replace stagnating state appropriations, requiring diminished expenditures and increased in-state tuitions The evidence we present suggests that the cuts negatively affected degree attainment at the undergraduate and graduate levels While the evidence on research is mixed, there are indications that the impact of spending declines on research outcomes may become evident over a longer time period