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This study examines the tuition elasticity of student enrollment for a public regional comprehensive master's university, Pittsburg State University in Kansas. Tuition elasticity is a measure of the responsiveness of student enrollment decisions due to changes in tuition over time. This measure is useful as it indicates how changes in tuition policy will affect revenue. Using 32 years of institutional, state, and national data, elasticity measures are estimated for various cohorts of students, including freshmen, transfers, undergraduates and graduate students. The model controls for factors other than tuition that are also likely to influence enrollment, such as: the availability of scholarships, household income, the relative cost of alternative schools, the economic environment, and the pool of recent high school graduates. The results indicate that freshman students are more sensitive to changes in tuition than other undergraduate students in general -- a one percent increase in tuition and fees is expected to result in a decrease in freshman enrollment of between 1.19 and 1.29 percent, holding all else constant. Both undergraduate transfer students and graduate students are found to be insensitive to increases in tuition and fees. These and other results are discussed relative to their policy implications for similar institutions contemplating increases in tuition.

College students often experience and report feeling stressed within the context of their daily lives. This empirical study examines the effect of personal stress on academic performance in an introductory economics course at a representative regional university. 105 students were surveyed and completed a standardized psychometric instrument revealing the extent of perceived stress. The resulting data were analyzed using an educational production function estimated by ordinary least squares. After controlling for student demographic characteristics, academic attributes, social environmental factors, and student confidence, the results reveal that measured personal stress significantly reduced student academic performance. Keywords: stress, course performance, metacognition, economics, college students, Introduction The experience of college has long been recognized as a stressful period of life. The typical college student is maturing from adolescence into adulthood and is often experiencing a [...]

Advocates for educational reform frequently call for policies to increase competition between schools because it is argued that market forces naturally lead to greater efficiencies, including improved student learning, when schools face competition. Researchers examining this issue are confronted with difficulties in defining reasonable measures of competition within local educational markets. We approach the problem through the application of Geographical Information System (GIS) tools to the development of a school competition index (SCI) for the state of Mississippi. The SCI captures the degree of competition each public school in the state faces from peer private schools spatially located within their local market area. We find that higher degrees of competition from private schools significantly increase public primary and high school efficiency, as measured by the proficiency rates on high-stakes examinations. It is anticipated that the current results will inform policymakers regarding the viability of competition-based reforms. (Contains 3 figures and 4 tables.)

In the fall of 2008, the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and St. Louis began a systematic evaluation of their economic and personal finance educational outreach programs. Both banks were interested in developing tools to assess the success of their existing economic and financial education programs. However, before any assessment could begin, a fundamental question had to be addressed: What do the banks want educators and students to know? To answer this question, the assessment team decided to develop a set of standards to guide the banks' programs. The group quickly realized that more than one set of standards were necessary to guide all of the banks' programs, which tend to fall into one of three categories: (1) the Federal Reserve System; (2) personal finance; and (3) general economics. Two new sets of education standards were developed. One covers the banks' programs about the Federal Reserve System, and the other covers personal finance. These newly created educational standards can guide teachers in developing citizens who are knowledgeable about the Fed and its role in financial system and market economy. This article introduces the "Educational Standards for Teaching about the Federal Reserve System"--the first attempt to develop standards outlining the knowledge that teachers and students need in order to understand the Federal Reserve. "The Educational Standards for Teaching about the Federal Reserve System" consists of 15 statements. To organize the standards, the 15 statements are grouped into seven broad areas. The authors briefly describe and discuss these seven areas. (Contains 10 notes.)

Without a Council for Economic Education affiliated state council, Mississippi lacked a formal economic education advocate for more than two decades. A new state council along with two university-based centers have recently undertaken an aggressive push to elevate the role and importance of economics in Mississippi's K-12 school systems. This study examines the level of economic literacy, as measured by standardized test scores, exhibited by K-12 teachers in the state near the beginning of this endeavor. A standard regression model is estimated to reveal those factors associated with the teachers' test scores. The results suggest that teachers, particularly elementary teachers, had relatively low levels of initial economic understanding. The degree of economic literacy was found to vary across gender, racial ethnicity, age, annual family income, and the previous levels of formal economics instruction. Additionally, teachers who taught economics as a separate discipline and those without a broad portfolio of teaching responsibilities scored higher, holding all else constant. (Contains 3 tables.)

This paper reports the development and implementation of a multi-year program targeting a cohort of at-risk pre-freshmen. The program, called BOSS Camp (Business Opportunities for Success School), was designed to motivate, acculturate and encourage economically disadvantaged pre-freshman to attend college and become business majors. The process of developing, implementing and adapting the BOSS Camp program is described. Program participants report that participation in the Camp has markedly increased their self-confidence and increased intentions to attend college. (Contains 3 tables.)

The authors examine the relationship between students' locus of control and their evaluation of teaching in a traditional principles of economics course. Locus of control is a psychological construct that identifies an individual's beliefs about the degree of personal control that can be exercised over his or her environment. Students with an internal locus-of-control orientation accept responsibility for control over their environment whereas those with an external orientation believe that they have little control or power to affect personal outcomes. The authors entered students' Rotter scale scores derived from the standard instrument used to measure locus of control orientation into an empirical ordered probit model estimated to explain the determination of student evaluation of teaching scores. The results indicate that more internally oriented students had a greater probability of assigning above average evaluation marks with respect to instructor performance whereas more externally oriented students had a greater probability of assigning average and below average instructor evaluation marks. (Contains 12 endnotes.)

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey Youth Cohort, estimates probability of drug use (illicit drugs, hard drugs, and marijuana only) across racial groups in relation to formal educational attainment. Adolescent drug use (in all three categories) reduces their educational attainment by about 1 year. (Contains 21 references.) (MLH)

A survey of university economic students given the chance to use computer assisted instruction (CAI) for supplemental study determined that black students spent less time using CAI, while students who were older, who had greater access to computers, who had taken a course in computer operations, and who highly rated the importance of CAI to their learning, used it more. (PEN)

Examines the role of economics in a business school curriculum from the perspective of student outcomes. Focuses upon an empirical analysis of the relationship between student understanding of basic economic principles and their success in an accredited business curriculum. (Author/JOW)

Examines the effect of unionization on high school economics teacher productivity measured by student performance on the Test of Economic Literacy (TEL). Finds that students in unionized school districts scored higher relative to students in nonunionized districts. Suggests these findings have implications for resource allocation. Includes tables showing results. (CH)

The effect of a jockey's sex on both pari-mutuel betting odds and race outcomes is examined for a three-year sample of North American thoroughbred races. The results reveal that for all races in total, a jockey's sex has no significant impact on the outcome of a race, holding all else constant, including horse quality. However, horseplayers assign a 1.5% higher probability of winning to female jockeys as reflected in their betting behaviour. For the subsample of stakes races, female jockeys are 2% less likely to win, ceteris paribus, but horseplayers do not consider jockey sex to be significant information for these premier races. Thus, the results indicate that horseplayers overestimate the performance of female jockeys in an industry where female jockeys often report significant hurdles to achievement and advancement. We conclude that pari-mutuel betting markets reflect an inefficiency with respect to a jockey's sex and that additional research is needed to uncover the source of this anomaly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of district-level course mandates on students' end-of-course economic understanding. Data were collected from Mississippi high school students studying economics in three different course environments. Students were either enrolled in a one semester economics course required for graduation, enrolled in a one semester course taken as an elective, or studying economics as an infusion subject within a United States history course. A regression-based selection model was estimated to control for students' demographic characteristics, educational attributes, market experiences, and school attributes. The results indicated that student test scores were significantly less for those students studying economics as an infusion subject and when taking a mandated stand-alone course, ceteris paribus. The authors conclude that course mandates may result in teacher and student issues that reduce the overall observed level of test performance., INTRODUCTION Mississippi will soon be joining the growing number of states that require students to complete a formal course in economics prior to graduation from high school (Grimes and Millea, [...]