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In this dissertation, I present an examination of the economics of education through three chapters. In the first paper, I study the overrepresentation of elite university graduates in senior positions in public administration. Using rich administrative data from Chile, I employ a stacked fuzzy regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal effect of attending elite universities versus non-elite institutions on the likelihood of working in the public sector and attaining top positions within it. The findings suggest that while the observed disparity in top positions within public administration is largely a result of selection rather than inherent advantages of elite education, attending elite universities may enhance social mobility for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, particularly within specific majors. In the second paper, my coauthors and I propose an alternative approach using algorithms to predict college readiness and guide course placement. Drawing on experimental data from seven community colleges, the study shows that algorithmic placement increases placement rates into college-level courses without sacrificing pass rates. Moreover, algorithmic placement shows promise in narrowing demographic disparities in placement rates and remedial course enrollment, outperforming traditional placement tests in terms of predictive accuracy while mitigating discrimination. In the final chapter, I explore the relationship between school counselor availability and disciplinary outcomes in middle and high schools across the United States. Leveraging exogenous variations in student-to-counselor ratios driven by state recommendations and mandates, I employ administrative data from 26 states to estimate the causal impact of counselor availability on disciplinary actions such as suspensions, expulsions, and transfers. The results indicate that increased counselor availability reduces school disciplinary actions, with larger effects observed in high schools compared to middle schools. Moreover, speculative analyses suggest that the effectiveness of counselors in mitigating disciplinary issues may be complemented by the overall staffing levels in high schools. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of how educational policies and practices shape individual outcomes and societal inequalities, shedding light on avenues for promoting social mobility, improving educational access and equity, and fostering conducive learning environments. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation consists of three essays in the economics of education. The first essay estimates the impact on women's educational outcomes from having a higher percentage of female peers. Leveraging quasi-random variation on the gender peer composition of STEM majors in a higher education vocational institution, I show that women benefit from having higher percentages of female peers. Specifically, a ten percentage point increase in the proportion of women in a STEM major cohort has a statistically significant positive effect on female students. It decreases female dropout rates by 9.6% and increases GPA by 0.05 standard deviations. The evidence suggests peer effects are mediated by the gender of the instructors. As female students have fewer female instructors, the effect of having more female peers intensifies. The second essay evaluates a randomized control trial intervention that gave information to high-performing students on their performance relative to other students. The results show that women and men were affected differently by the intervention: effects for women with high self-confidence are higher than the effects for men in the same group. For high-performing women who have low self-confidence in their math ability, the probability that they apply to any major increases and the selectivity of their choice of major-university also increases. The increase in application probability comes from an increase in applications for health majors. The third essay describes and explores the STEM gender gap in higher education enrollment and application. The paper focuses on how the STEM gender gap varies depending on students' socioeconomic status (SES). We show that the gender gap in STEM enrollment among top-performing Chilean students is larger for low-SES students than high-SES students. Low-SES men enroll in STEM majors 3.7 times more than low-SES women, while high-SES men enroll in STEM majors 2.4 times more than high-SES women. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]