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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.]

K-12 educational outcomes are a powerful reflection of social opportunity, both by meaningfully predicting adult wellbeing across measures like health and income, and by encapsulating the breadth of factors that contribute to a child's preparedness, ability, and opportunity to learn and persist in school. In this light, the persistent deficits in educational outcomes experienced by individuals from traditionally disadvantaged identity groups and classes reflect systemic failures to meaningfully address the numerous shortcomings of education and social policy to create equal educational opportunities for all students. The three papers that comprise this dissertation aim to promote more equitable education and social policy by contributing valuable insights into three vital areas of policy that substantively shape the educational opportunities and outcomes of students in the United States. In the first, I extend the existing literature on how air pollutants can contribute to educational inequality by measuring the association between students' proximity to hog farms, their feces lagoons, and fecal fertilizer spraying, and educational outcomes in North Carolina. In the second, I examine the most important school-level resource for student achievement -- teachers -- and how the processes by which students are assigned to classrooms enables the disproportionate assignment of lower performing, nonwhite, and low-income students to less effective teachers within their schools. And finally, I examine districts' proposed spending of federal COVID-19 relief funds, what differences in spending strategies existed for these extremely flexible dollars, and what potential equity implications may exist for student academic learning recovery in the wake of the pandemic. Collectively, these papers contribute new knowledge in three important areas of education and social policy and foreground several promising future research directions by which greater educational equity and equality of social opportunity can be promoted. [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.]