The Potential for Community College Students to Expand and Diversify four-year Degree Production in STEM Fields, (with Cory Koedel), job market paper
Abstract: We use rich administrative microdata from Missouri to examine the potential to expand and diversify the production of STEM degrees at universities by tapping into the population of community college students. We find that the scope for expansion is modest, even at an upper bound, because most community college students have academic qualifications that make them unlikely to succeed in a STEM field at a university. We also find there is almost no scope for community college students to improve the racial/ethnic diversity of four-year STEM degree recipients. We conclude that it will be challenging to expand and diversify STEM degree production at universities with interventions targeted toward community college students.
Non-Resident Postsecondary Enrollment Growth and the Outcomes of In-State Students, (with Diyi Li and Cory Koedel), Contemporary Economic Policy, Contemporary Economic Policy, 38, no. 4 (2020): 736-757. published article
Abstract: We study the effects of exposure to nonresident students on the outcomes of undergraduate in‐state students during a period of high nonresident enrollment growth at the University of Missouri‐Columbia. Our models leverage within‐major, cross‐time variation in nonresident exposure for identification. We find no evidence that increased exposure to domestic nonresidents affects in‐state student outcomes and our null results are precisely estimated. We find evidence of modest negative impacts on in‐state students when their exposure to foreign students increases using our preferred specification. However, the identifying variation in exposure to foreign students in our data is limited and this result is not robust in all of our models.
The Effect of Local Labor Market Conditions on Postsecondary Enrollment and Degree Completion, working paper
Abstract: I use a recent data panel spanning the years 2001-2017 to study the effect of local-area unemployment on postsecondary enrollment and degree completion. My analysis extends the literature in several ways, most notably by (a) incorporating data well into the recent economic recovery from the Great Recession, (b) using improved (more accurate) measures of postsecondary enrollment, and (c) accounting for the attenuating effect of measurement error in calculated unemployment rates. Like in previous research, I find that postsecondary enrollment is countercyclical. I further show that the countercyclical enrollment pattern is concentrated among students in two-year and sub-two-year degree programs. There is suggestive evidence that men are more elastic than women in their enrollment response to unemployment, and unemployment rates have long term effect on degree completion, but my estimates are too imprecise to draw strong inference.