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Correctional education is a prevalent form of rehabilitation programming for prisoners in the United States. There is limited evidence, however, about the labor market returns to credentials received while incarcerated. Using incarceration, educational, and labor market data in Washington State, we study the labor market returns to GEDs and short-term vocational certificates earned in prison. We identify the returns to credentials by a difference-indifferences design that compares changes in earnings and employment for incarcerated persons who earn a credential to those who enroll in a program but fail to complete a GED or certificate. We estimate that GEDs increase post-incarceration earnings by about $450 per quarter and that vocational certificates increase earnings by about $250 per quarter. Degree completers have higher hourly wages, are more likely to be employed, and work more hours following release. For vocational programs, earnings increases are driven by certificates in construction and manufacturing. [The research presented presented in this report uses confidential data from the Education Research and Data Center (ERDC) located within the Washington Office of Financial Management (OFM).]

The Cowen Institute has conducted annual polls on perceptions of public education in New Orleans since 2007. Our polls are designed to provide insight into how parents, guardians, and the general public view New Orleans' highly decentralized K-12 public education system. Each year, we ask some new questions about the most relevant and pressing issues facing educators and families. We also repeat questions from our previous polls to assess how opinions change over time on a few key topics. We now release the poll findings in a series of briefs at the start of each year. This is the first of two briefs that will be released in 2024 with results from polling conducted in the fall of 2023. We present the data in this way to make it more accessible and understandable for the general public -- the briefs allow us to group the findings by topic, enabling us to surface trends about particular areas of the city's education system. This brief covers general perceptions about New Orleans K-12 public education; the second brief will delve more deeply into specific areas of education. To capture the experiences and attitudes of a wide range of parents, as we have done since 2020, we polled 1,000 public and private school parents and guardians in Orleans Parish, as well as a small number who homeschool their children.

Using data from nearly 1.2 million Black SAT takers, we estimate the impacts of initially enrolling in an Historically Black College and University (HBCU) on educational, economic, and financial outcomes. We control for the college application portfolio and compare students with similar portfolios and levels of interest in HBCUs and non-HBCUs who ultimately make divergent enrollment decisions -- often enrolling in a four-year HBCU in lieu of a two-year college or no college. We find that students initially enrolling in HBCUs are 14.6 percentage points more likely to earn a BA degree and have 5 percent higher household income around age 30 than those who do not enroll in an HBCU. Initially enrolling in an HBCU also leads to $12,000 more in outstanding student loans around age 30. We find that some of these results are driven by an increased likelihood of completing a degree from relatively broad-access HBCUs and also relatively high-earning majors (e.g., STEM). We also explore new outcomes, such as credit scores, mortgages, bankruptcy, and neighborhood characteristics around age 30.

Despite growing attention to addressing racial, ethnic, and other inequities in many domains, limited research explores whether and how society's marginalization of people with disabilities compounds for immigrants to produce inequitable financial outcomes. When accessing education and employment, immigrants with disabilities face challenges due to their disability status, citizenship and immigration status, race, ethnicity, and language. This summary highlights key takeaways from a convening of nine experts from universities, research organizations, and community organizations knowledgeable about the intersection of immigration and disability. The goal of the meeting was to identify barriers to financial well-being among immigrants with disabilities in education and employment. Participants discussed how the Protection and Advocacy systems (P&As), which provide legal representation and advocacy for people with disabilities, can help better inform this population of their rights as disabled people and how community-based organizations (CBOs) can bridge gaps in access to education and employment supports. The summary concludes with directions for future research. [Additional funding provided by the Capital One Foundation.]

This paper studies how school spending impacts student achievement by exploiting the US interstate branching deregulation as state tax revenue shocks. Leveraging school finance data from universal school districts, our difference-in-differences estimation reveals that deregulation leads to an increase in per-pupil total revenue and expenditure. The rise in revenue is primarily attributed to higher state revenues, while the expenditure increase is more prominent in low-income school districts. Using restricted-use student assessments from the Nation's Report Card, we find that deregulation results in improved student achievement, with no distributional effects evident across students' ability, race, or free lunch status. We introduce an instrumental variables approach that accounts for dynamic treatment effects and estimate that a one-thousand-dollar increase in per-pupil spending leads to a 0.035 standard deviation improvement in student achievement.

This report presents data on public elementary and secondary education revenues and expenditures at the local education agency (LEA) or school district level for fiscal year (FY) 2021. Specifically, this report includes the following types of school district finance data: (1) revenue, current expenditure, and capital outlay expenditure totals; (2) revenues by source; (3) current expenditures by function and object; and (4) revenues and current expenditures per pupil. The finance data used in this report are from the School District Finance Survey (F-33), a component of the Common Core of Data (CCD). The CCD is the primary National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) database on public elementary and secondary education in the United States. The F-33 survey consists of LEA-level finance data submitted annually to the U.S. Census Bureau (Census Bureau) by state education agencies (SEAs) in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. [For "Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts: FY 20. Finance Tables. NCES 2022-303," see ED624445.]

This study uses the 2021 Census to describe the educational attainment and earnings of the Canadian-born Black population, focusing on three groups: (1) those with at least one African-born parent (African-origin); (2) those with at least one Caribbean-born parent (Caribbean-origin) and (3) those whose parents were both born in Canada (Canadian-origin). Comparisons are drawn with the non-racialized, non-Indigenous population, both second generation and third generation or more. The study provides a descriptive analysis of the demographic and educational characteristics of the three Canadian-born Black populations, followed by a regression analysis examining factors affecting earnings, including educational attainment, job characteristics, and other factors.

This study examines charter school funding equity in 18 cities using 2019-20 data, the most recent available. The study uses official school district and state budget documents to capture every dollar flowing to schools, including in-kind services. The study answers the following questions: (1) What is the difference in per-pupil revenue between traditional public schools (TPS) and charter schools in major US cities in the 2019-20 school year? (2) Do differences in student demographics explain any funding differences between TPS and charter schools? (3) Does the relationship between TPS and charter school funding vary across categories of school revenue? and (4) Which cities are driving the results? Findings reveal that: (1) Charter school students across 18 cities receive an average of 30 percent less funding per pupil than students in TPS in 17 of those cities; (2) About 65 percent of the underfunding of public charter schools in the cities can be attributed to lower enrollments of students with disabilities in the charter sector; and (3) Charter schools receive less local funding, state funding, federal funding, and nonpublic funding than TPS.

Each year, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) provides a tuition and fees report based on charges approved by boards of visitors at Virginia public institutions. The report includes a list of tuition and fee charges to in-state and out-of-state students and for undergraduate and graduate programs. It also provides trends over time and comparisons to other states and highlights affordable options students can choose to reduce costs. This report focuses on tuition and fees for in-state undergraduates and provides a summary of the following four items: (1) tuition and fees for the 2023-24 academic year; (2) state funding and tuition and fee trends; (3) tuition and fee comparisons to other states; and (4) pathways to increase affordability beyond tuition and fees. The appendices compare changes in tuition and fees for in-state undergraduate, out-of-state undergraduate, in-state graduate, out-of-state graduate, in-state first professional, and out-of-state first professional students. [For "2022-23 Tuition and Fees at Virginia State-Supported Colleges and Universities," see ED624424.]

We propose a new method for estimating school-level characteristics from publicly available census data. We use a school's location to impute its catchment area by aggregating the nearest "n" census block groups such that the number of school-aged children in those "n" block groups is just over the number of students enrolled in that school. We then weight census data by the number of school-aged children in the block-group to estimate school-level measures. We conduct several robustness checks to assess the quality of our estimates and find that our method is broadly successful in replicating known school-level characteristics and producing unbiased estimates for school-level income. This method expands the available set of school-level variables to the broader and richer set of characteristics measured in the census, which can then be used to conduct descriptive and observational research across a long time horizon.

"The Appalachian Region: A Data Overview from the 2017-2021 American Community Survey," also known as "The Chartbook," draws from the most recent American Community Survey and comparable Census Population Estimates. The report contains over 300,000 data points about Appalachia's economy, income, employment, education, and other important indicators--all presented at regional, subregional, state, and county levels. Though that data was collected before, and during the initial ten months of, the COVID-19 pandemic, they provide a critical benchmark for comparison when more pandemic and post-pandemic information becomes available. [For the 2016-2020 Chartbook, see ED625962.]

Virtual charter schools are increasingly popular, yet there is no research on the long-term outcomes of virtual charter students. We link statewide education records from Oregon with earnings information from IRS records housed at the U.S. Census Bureau to provide evidence on how virtual charter students fare as young adults. Virtual charter students have substantially worse high school graduation rates, college enrollment rates, bachelor's degree attainment, employment rates, and earnings than students in traditional public schools. Although there is growing demand for virtual charter schools, our results suggest that students who enroll in virtual charters may face negative long-term consequences.

Trellis' Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS) seeks to document the financial well-being of post-secondary students and provide institutions with a detailed profile of the financial issues their students face, some of which could potentially impact their success in college. This report details aggregated findings for the 89 colleges and universities across the country that participated in the fall 2022 implementation of the survey. [For "Student Financial Wellness Survey: Fall 2021 Semester Results. National Aggregate Report," see ED625724.]

This set of tables introduces new data for national and state-level public elementary and secondary revenues and expenditures for fiscal year (FY) 2021. Specifically, these tables include the following school finance data: (1) revenue and expenditure totals; (2) revenues by source; (3) expenditures by function and object; (4) current expenditures; (5) revenues and current expenditures per pupil; (6) expenditures from Title I funds; and (7) revenues and expenditures from COVID-19 Federal Assistance Funds. The tables chosen for this report demonstrate the range of information available when using the National Public Education Financial Survey (NPEFS). [For "Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: FY 20. Finance Tables. NCES 2022-301," see ED619372.]

For more than 37 years, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) has advocated on behalf of Hispanic higher education in the U.S. and around the world. The mission of the association is to Champion Hispanic Success in Higher Education. HACU fulfills its mission by: promoting the development of member colleges and universities; improving access to and the quality of postsecondary educational opportunities for Hispanic students; and meeting the needs of business, industry and government through the development and sharing of resources, information and expertise. The Annual Report highlights advocacy efforts, HACU's membership, conferences and events, financials, leadership programs, student services and activities supported by HACU's staff at its National Headquarters in San Antonio, Texas and regional offices in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento, California. [For the 2021 report, see ED620469.]

School funding in Michigan is inadequate and inequitable. Michigan does not provide a sufficient base per-pupil amount, nor does the state properly address the cost of educating students with additional needs, especially students with disabilities, English learners, and low-income students. It would cost $4.5 billion to bring districts to funding adequacy based on estimates updated from the 2018 Michigan School Finance Research Collaborative (SFRC) adequacy study. This cost includes an estimated $1.6 billion to introduce universal, no-cost preschool. This report emphasizes the importance of the SFRC's adequacy recommendations by highlighting the following current needs and potential benefits from the SFRC adequacy study: (1) Most Michigan districts need substantial increases in revenue to reach adequate funding; and (2) Certain districts, especially those serving significant numbers of low-income students, are more severely under-resourced.

Community colleges in the United States, which serve a disproportionate number of students from low-income backgrounds, can provide a valuable pathway toward well-paying careers. However, graduation rates at community colleges are very low--among first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who enter public two-year schools, only 29 percent graduate within three years. Seeking to address this challenge, three community colleges in Ohio implemented a new comprehensive program model that was based closely on the City University of New York's (CUNY's) proven Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP). In 2015, the three Ohio colleges began implementing their programs and experienced similar successes as CUNY; the first phase of MDRC's study found large impacts on graduation rates and transfer to four-year institutions after three years. This brief extends the follow-up period for the Ohio programs to six years and provides earnings and employment impacts for the first time. After six years, the program continued to have an impact on graduation: 44 percent of students in the program group earned a degree, compared with 29 percent in the control group. Notably, these improvements in academic achievement have led to increased earnings, on average, for the students in the program group. In Year 6, students in the program group earned an additional $1,948 over the control group average of $17,626, an increase of 11 percent. These findings represent a new and important contribution to the growing body of evidence on comprehensive approaches (especially those modeled after CUNY ASAP) to improve the educational--and now economic--outcomes of students from low-income backgrounds. Future briefs will extend the follow-up period for academic outcomes to eight years and labor market outcomes to ten years. [For the supplement to this report, see ED627556.]

School finance debates frequently turn on two crucial questions: (1) How much do state and local governments spend on K-12 education?; and (2) How are education dollars distributed across jurisdictions? This focus makes sense because the answers to these questions determine how well states are able to provide an adequate, equal education for all students. This report, however, focuses on two different questions: (1) Where do school revenues come from?; and (2) How does revenue composition affect education policymaking? Put differently, this report focuses on the degree to which states rely on state versus local revenue, or on different types of taxes (e.g., those on income, sales, or property), and how such features matter for the adequacy and equity of education spending. Two states with identical finance systems and student populations, and which spend the same amount overall on K-12 schools, might have very different adequacy and equity outcomes depending on the composition of their revenue. In short, money matters; but where money comes from matters too.

The data presented in this report provide facts about the extent to which local, state, and national governments commit resources to public education. As one might expect in a nation as diverse as the United States--with respect to economics, geography, and politics--the level of commitment to education varies on a state-by-state basis. Thus, NEA Research offers this report to its state and local affiliates as well as to researchers, policymakers, and the public as a tool to examine public education programs and services. Part I of this report--Rankings 2022--provides state-level data on an array of topics relevant to the complex enterprise of public education. Part II of this report--Estimates 2023--is in its 78th year of production. Estimates provides data tables projecting public school enrollment, employment and compensation of personnel, and finances, as reported by individual state departments of education. The influx of federal funding through COVID relief measures added a new layer of complexity to the development of financial projections. Part III of this report--National Trends 2014-23--presents summary data of national trends in student enrollment and attendance, staff salaries, sources of school funding, and levels of educational expenditures in the previous 10 years. [For "Rankings of the States 2021 and Estimates of School Statistics 2022. NEA Research," see ED620624.]

Increasing education funding is a topic of discussion every year at the Minnesota State Legislature. In January, Governor Tim Walz proposed a 4% increase to the basic education formula allowance within the K-12 general education revenue program, the "education formula" that determines the majority of funding school districts receive from the state. Whenever any changes to the general education revenue program are proposed, it brings up an ongoing question--will some districts benefit more than others? To help with this transparency issue, this report examines how an increase to one component of the general education revenue program--the basic education revenue formula allowance--would impact districts across the state, and in doing so, hopefully provides some insight into how the general education revenue program works.

Women represent a key demographic in the global workforce and are increasingly seeking advanced degrees to further their careers. However, many barriers and challenges still exist in attracting and retaining prospective female students in graduate management education (GME) programs. This research brief takes a closer look at the perspectives of women in the GME pipeline. Data is leveraged from GMAC's Prospective Students Survey, in which candidates self-select their gender identity, as well as other research to better understand their motivations and goals. With this understanding, GME programs can better tailor messaging to use when marketing to this key audience. First, the brief examines the mindset female candidates have expressed in the survey, including the motivations and barriers they consider when assessing a potential next step in GME. Then, through the identification of female candidates' hopes for potential benefits from GME, the second section contextualizes these preferences. With a better understanding of female GME candidates' mindsets and hopes, the final section examines their associated career goals and expectations and their plans for the future.

The paper presents a first global investigation of the longer-term inequality implications of COVID-19 by examining the effect of school closures on the ability of children from different countries and backgrounds to engage in continued learning throughout the pandemic, and their implications for intergenerational mobility in education. The analysis builds on the data from the Global Database of Intergenerational Mobility, country-specific results of the learning loss simulation model using weekly school closure information from February 2020 to February 2022, and high-frequency phone survey data collected by the World Bank during the pandemic to assess the incidence and quality of continued learning during periods of school closures across children from different backgrounds. Based on this information, the paper simulates counterfactual levels of educational attainment and corresponding absolute and relative intergenerational educational mobility measures with and without COVID-19 impacts, to arrive at estimates of COVID-19 impacts. The simulations suggest that the extensive school closures and associated learning losses are likely to have a significant impact on both absolute and relative intergenerational educational mobility in the absence of remedial measures. In upper-middle-income countries, the share of children with more years of education than their parents (absolute mobility) could decline by 8 percentage points, with the largest impacts observed in the Latin America region. Furthermore, unequal access to continued learning during school closures across children from households of different socioeconomic backgrounds (proxied by parental education levels) leads to a significant decline in relative educational mobility. [This report was prepared by the World Bank Poverty and Equity Global Practice & Education Global Practice.]

Across the United States, students attending rural school districts can face different obstacles than their urban counterparts, particularly rural students from households living below the federal poverty level. But how rural districts are defined can vary by federal, state, and local entity and can sometimes not capture the difficulties specific districts face. The authors examine the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) definitions of rurality--the predominant avenue of federal funding for rural districts--and compare these definitions with how states define "rural" in their own funding formulas. The authors show that these definitions often identify different districts, and they investigate how summary data on district demographics, staffing, revenues, and expenditures vary across these different definitions. Based on the findings in this report, the authors recommend the following: (1) States should consider incorporating a "small" school district component into support systems, either for the first time or in addition to other components; (2) States should reevaluate (or evaluate for the first time) which definitions determine eligibility for funding; and (3) Researchers should consider the geographic context of their research and which definitions of rurality are most appropriate. The pandemic has had significant consequences for rural students, who often lacked internet and other supports necessary to learn from home. It is crucial that policymakers understand how state and federal definitions of rurality affect their understanding of rural districts' needs and resources to support students who are often already at a disadvantage.

Crises have a way of shaking up the status quo and creating space for new thinking. When shocked out of their familiarity, people start to ask questions as to why things are the way that they are and brainstorm ways to make them better. Enter entrepreneurs. They are the people who take those ideas that are lying around and attempt to create solutions to the problems blasted open by crises. The pandemic was a crisis for American education. From 2019 to 2022 the average fourth grade math score dropped 5 scale score points, falling to the lowest level since 2005. In eighth grade, the average math score dropped 8 points, the lowest they have been since 2003. Entrepreneurs responded to the pandemic with gusto. The Prenda microschool network started in 2013 but tripled in size during the pandemic. Parents looking for smaller, more responsive education environments met a platform that was ready for them. The Art of Problem Solving, a content provider known originally for its high-level math courses, leaned into the pandemic, flooding their website with resources for parents and building out the functionality of their products. Now emerging from the pandemic, it is an opportune time to take stock of exactly where the world of educational entrepreneurship stands. What are the headwinds and what are the tailwinds? Where is entrepreneurship succeeding and where it is struggling? To answer these questions, EdChoice partnered with Hanover Research to survey 59 educational entrepreneurs working today to find out about their experiences. This paper shares the results of that survey.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and as many as a third of Americans have some type of criminal record. Upon reentry, individuals with a justice history, whom referred as returning citizens, face significant barriers to economic security and reintegration into their communities. Among the most formidable barriers to reentry are a disadvantaged living environment, low levels of education, mental health challenges, and stigma that excludes them from job opportunities and other resources. All of these factors contribute to a high recidivism rate among returning citizens and make it harder for them to secure employment. Entrepreneurship presents a promising pathway to economic security and reintegration into communities as it requires minimal formal schooling, provides additional income and control over their livelihoods, and has the potential to uplift the often-low-income communities to which these individuals return. While entrepreneurship has great potential to reduce recidivism and promote economic stability, returning citizens have to overcome several hurdles in their entrepreneurship endeavors, ranging from a lack of access to capital, collateral consequences of having a criminal record, a digital skills gap, and limited access to wraparound support services. The paper will highlight two entrepreneurship training initiatives in Missouri and Washington, D.C. [This paper is a collaboration with the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO).]

The European Education Area aims to support Member States' efforts in enhancing the educational attainment of younger generations. In this policy context, there is a need for an objective tool to assess the educational outcomes of EU countries. The present report addresses this need by pursuing two objectives: (1) providing a comprehensive method for using EU-SILC data to build relevant indicators for monitoring educational systems; (2) investigating the factors that explain variations in educational indicators across EU countries, with a particular focus on the influence of family inputs and personal characteristics. The empirical analysis is conducted using EU-SILC data from the 27 EU countries, employing various methodologies, including cluster analysis, principal component analysis, and correlational analysis. The results of this report demonstrate the potential of EU-SILC data in assessing educational systems in Europe. Furthermore, the findings offer valuable insights in support of the European Commission's objective of establishing a European Educational Area. The results also raise concerns, suggesting that education in Europe may not act as a universal equaliser. Instead, educational systems continue to exhibit social selectivity in influencing individuals' prospects for future careers.

Since its launch in the midst of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the American School District Panel (ASDP) has been used to monitor timely topics in kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) public education. Over time, ASDP surveys have coalesced around four key challenges that U.S. public school districts face today: school staffing, budgeting, the politicization of schooling, and academic recovery efforts. In this Data Note, authors provide a brief update on these four challenges using data from the fall 2023 ASDP survey. The survey included seven questions on these topics, and the findings of each question are briefly discussed.

Income-driven repayment (IDR) plans are a subset of student loan repayment plans that cap a borrower's monthly payment at a percentage of their discretionary income, which is defined as a portion of a borrower's adjusted gross income (AGI) that exceeds a specified multiple of the federal poverty line (FPL) for the borrower's family size. A borrower may be in negative amortization under an IDR plan, which means that their monthly payment can be less than the interest that accrues in a given month, and the accumulation of unpaid interest may lead to an increase in their loan balance. Any loan balance that remains outstanding after the borrower has made qualifying payments according to an IDR plan for a maximum repayment period is to be forgiven. Over the last nearly 30 years, Congress and the Department of Education (ED) have created the following existing IDR plans: the Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) plan, two Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plans, the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) repayment plan, and the Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE) repayment plan. In January 2023, ED published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to make a number of substantial amendments to the federal student loan IDR plans. This report discusses the most frequently asked questions related to the proposed rules in the following areas: (1) background on IDR plans; (2) changes specific to the REPAYE repayment plan such as to borrower eligibility, monthly payments, interest benefits, and the maximum repayment period; (3) changes applicable to all IDR plans; other provisions related to delinquent and defaulted borrowers; and (4) the estimated cost of the proposed rules.

Experiential learning is critical to a smooth transition from higher education to the workforce. Work-based college courses, such as internships and practicums, may be useful in facilitating this transition. This paper applies an innovative text mining technique to identify and analyze work-based courses from transcript data. The paper examines patterns and post-degree labor market outcomes of taking work-based courses at two-year and four-year colleges in a large public college system. Findings show that approximately 15% of enrollees and 30% of graduates took a work-based course in the six years after college entry. Students typically earned credits from work-based courses, and they typically took the courses in later years of their programs. Moreover, work-based coursetaking varied largely across fields of study as well as colleges. While there was no significant racial disparity, female students, students who were younger at enrollment, and U.S.-born students were more likely to take the courses than their counterparts. Results show a positive association between work-based coursetaking in college and the probability of being employed after degree completion among both two-year and four-year degree completers, a positive association with post-degree earnings among four-year completers, and a negative association with post-degree earnings among two-year completers.

While the Pell Grant covers a substantial proportion of college tuition for low-income students, it has covered only two full-time semesters per year and has not included any support for summer courses through most of its history. As research has shown that continuous enrollment throughout the year increases college persistence and completion, the summer Pell (SP) program was added during the summer of 2009 and allowed eligible low-income students to receive an additional grant for summer tuition and eligible costs. The SP was eliminated in 2011 and then restored in 2017. Using administrative data on community college students in New York City, our difference-indifferences analysis results from both periods show that SP-eligible students had a higher retention rate in the fall of the second year, had higher associate and bachelor's degree attainment rates, and had higher earnings gains up to nine years from college entry compared to SP-ineligible students. Heterogeneous analysis indicates that the SP benefits were driven by Black students and older students.