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We draw on administrative data from the country of Colombia to assess differences in student learning in online and traditional on-campus college programs. The Colombian context is uniquely suited to study this topic, as students take a compulsory exit examination at the end of their studies. We can therefore directly compare the performance on the exit exam for students in online and on-campus programs both across and within institutions, degrees, and majors. Using inverse probability weighting methods based on a rich set of background characteristics coupled with institution--degree--major fixed effects, our results suggest that bachelor's degree students in online programs perform worse on nearly all test score measures (including math, reading, writing, and English) relative to their counterparts in on-campus programs. Results for shorter technical certificates are more mixed. While online students perform significantly worse than on-campus students on exit exams in private institutions, they perform better in SENA--the main public vocational institution in the country.

Despite extensive public infrastructure spending, surprisingly little is known about its economic return. In this paper, we estimate the value of school facility investments using housing markets: standard models of local public goods imply that school districts should spend up to the point where marginal increases would have zero effect on local housing prices. Our research design isolates exogenous variation in investments by comparing school districts where referenda on bond issues targeted to fund capital expenditures passed and failed by narrow margins. We extend this traditional regression discontinuity approach to identify the dynamic treatment effects of bond authorization on local housing prices, student achievement, and district composition. Our results indicate that California school districts underinvest in school facilities: passing a referendum causes immediate, sizable increases in home prices, implying a willingness to pay on the part of marginal homebuyers of $1.50 or more for each $1 of capital spending. These effects do not appear to be driven by changes in the income or racial composition of homeowners, and the impact on test scores appears to explain only a small portion of the total housing price effect. (c) 2010 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology..

This exploratory article describes how community colleges and proprietary schools differ, which students are served by these two types of schools, and how these institutions compare in the areas of financial aid and school quality. I describe and synthesize existing data sources and analyze a new data set of California’s for-profit colleges. I find that there are many more proprietary schools and students than previous estimates suggest. I note key similarities and differences between the private and public sectors and investigate hypotheses explaining the observed patterns.

Concerns over rising college tuition and slow economic growth have brought renewed attention to the role of federal and state financial aid programs in opening access to education. Despite a large body of literature examining the effects of grant aid on four-year and public two-year college enrollment, for-profit colleges--particularly the vast majority that offer two-year degrees and certificates--have largely been ignored. Using panel data methods and a new administrative data set of for-profit colleges operating in California between 1989 and 2003, I assess the impact of the federal Pell Grant program, the G.I. Bill, and California's Cal Grant program on the net number of for-profit colleges per county. The results suggest that for both Pell and Cal Grants, increases in the per-student maximum award encourage for-profit entry. This relationship is particularly strong in counties with high adult poverty levels, where more students are eligible for aid. Further, these gains in the private sector do not appear to come at the expense of the public sector. Rather, public community colleges also experience enrollment gains as the generosity of Pell and Cal Grants increases, although this reaction appears to be weaker than the reaction of for-profits. (Contains 1 figure, 6 tables, and 24 footnotes.)

This paper reviews the literature on poverty dynamics in the U.S. It surveys the most prevalent data, theories, and methods used to answer three key questions: How likely are people to enter, exit, and reenter poverty? How long do people remain in poverty? And what events are associated with entering and exiting poverty? The paper then analyzes the combined findings of the literature, discussing overarching patterns of poverty dynamics, differences among demographic groups, and how poverty probabilities, duration, and events have changed over time. We conclude with a discussion of the policy implications of these findings and avenues for future research. (Contains 2 tables and 11 footnotes.)

By promoting articulation agreements between high schools and community colleges, Tech-Prep programs aim to smooth the transition to college for the middle majority of US high school students. This paper employs a family fixed effects approach to assess the effectiveness of Tech-Prep programs in increasing educational attainment. Using data from six rounds of the 1997 NLSY and controlling for both selection and within-family spillovers, I find that Tech-Prep programs help participants complete high school and encourage enrollment in two-year colleges. On the other hand, these gains come at the expense of four-year college enrollment, suggesting that Tech-Prep programs may divert students from four-year to two-year colleges in the years immediately following high school. While Tech-Prep programs appear to increase overall educational attainment, they may be falling short of their goal of promoting college enrollment among the middle majority.

The article reviews the published writings on the poverty dynamics in the U.S. It enumerates the methods used in poverty dynamic literatures including tabulation, life table, and multivariate hazard rate. It surveys the most dominant data, theories and methods used to answer major questions such as how will people escape the vicious cycle of poverty? until when they will remain living in poverty? and what events led to their entry to poverty as well as the event to escape from it? Reviews done reveal that most researchers continue to measure poverty using the official poverty definition, though slight modification has also been done. It adds that studies also draw on the same two data sets including Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.