For anyone who recently has bought a car, it is striking how data-driven and consumer-friendly the process is. Gone are the days where consumers operated in the dark and car salesmen held all the power because of information asymmetry. Now consumers can look up a car’s entire history — from its first inspection at the...
Credential inflation refers to an increase in the education credentials required for a job—for example, a job that used to be done by high school graduates but now requires new hires to have a college degree. Credential inflation has been going on for decades. One of the earliest mentions of it is in professor Randall...
Students enroll in college for a variety of reasons, and getting a better job is rated as a very important reason by 85% of them. One marker of a “good” job is earning enough to be able to repay student loans. But until recently, students were forced to guess which colleges and majors would fit that...
Student debt and the accompanying difficulties students have in repaying their loans is garnering increasing attention, especially as the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc with the job market. Many students who struggle often default on their debt, with dire financial consequences. While the CARES act provided short term relief by letting students suspend payments until...
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing devastating financial damage throughout the economy, and higher education is no exception. Colleges worry about a decline in enrollments from students newly wary of gathering in close quarters, cuts in state funding that historically accompany recessions, and declines in the value of endowments. These dangers are real, but they don’t distinguish...
One of the reasons the coronavirus pandemic got out of hand in this country is the testing fiasco orchestrated by the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration. There’s a lesson here for those of us in higher education. When innovation is needed — and needed quickly — we shouldn’t put all our...
For years, there has been a low-level debate simmering about whether college is worth it. This debate has been somewhat maddening for both sides. The “yes, college is worth it” side notes that reliable data sources, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, say education pays. And the College Board’s annual report, also titled Education Pays, consistently...
It will surprise few that college campuses in America lean left. But does it matter? Research suggests that the left’s takeover of academia is hurting the quality of new science produced on campuses. And new evidence hints that students’ educations may be harmed as well. What are the Dangers for Science? One of the primary...
Some on the left scapegoat for-profit colleges for the problems of higher education. The Obama administration crafted a set of “Gainful Employment” regulations primarily targeting these programs. If a pool of graduates had too much debt relative to earnings, the government would cut off financial aid to its students. These and other regulations helped drive...
In November, the Department of Education released post graduate earnings and debt data broken down by college program — which will have a revolutionary impact on higher education. Students (and policymakers) can now get accurate information about how much recent graduates earned by college and degree (e.g., a Bachelor’s in Physics from Ohio State University). While the...
I have a confession to make. My recent study on state funding of higher education was about the simplest piece of research I’ve done in a dozen years. So was the finding; there’s been no trend of state disinvestment in higher education. But what a ruckus it caused. The key finding entailed simply downloading and graphing data...
“Two days. Two reports citing the same data. Two different conclusions.” That is how Rick Seltzer described the near-simultaneous release of two studies looking at state funding in Inside Higher Ed. The first study was written by myself for the Texas Public Policy Foundation and found that state disinvestment is a myth. The second study, by Michael Mitchell, Michael Leachman, and...