Prior research substantially overstates the cost of retention under test-based promotion policies to both taxpayers and students who delay labor market entry because it omits two important factors. First, there is a delay between the intervention and the taxpayer's expenditure. Second, on average, the treatment leads to less than a full year of…

The success of policy interventions is frequently stymied by the inability to induce take-up in target populations. In this article, I show that local advertising in combination with small financial lotteries increases the likelihood that low-income students apply for and receive state aid. I isolate causal impacts by estimating the change in…

Many low-income and first-generation students who enroll in college experience less desirable outcomes during their first year. Researchers have increasingly investigated the important role of college knowledge and engagement with faculty and staff for student success. Through a randomized controlled trial intervention, this study leverages the…

We report findings from a quasi-experimental evaluation of the recently implemented US$5,000 retention bonus program for effective teachers in Tennessee's Priority Schools. We estimate the impact of the program on teacher retention using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design by exploiting a discontinuity in the probability of treatment…

This article exploits a natural experiment to estimate the effects of need-based aid policies on first-year college persistence rates. In fall 2006, Ohio abruptly adopted a new state financial aid policy that was significantly more generous than the previous plan. Using student-level data and very narrowly defined sets of students, I estimate a…

In this article, we perform cost-effectiveness analysis on interventions that improve the rate of high school completion. Using the What Works Clearinghouse to select effective interventions, we calculate cost-effectiveness ratios for five youth interventions. We document wide variation in cost-effectiveness ratios between programs and between…

This article evaluates the impact and cost-effectiveness of offering an innovative middle school model--the Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial (SAT)--to Honduran villages instead of traditional middle schools. We identified a matched sample of villages with either type of school and collected baseline data among primary school graduates eligible to…

College graduation rates often lag behind college attendance rates. One theory as to why students do not complete college is that they lack key information about how to be successful or fail to act on the information that they have. We present evidence from a randomized experiment which tests the effectiveness of individualized student coaching.…

The common reporting of effect sizes has been an important advance in education research in recent years. However, the benchmarks used to interpret the size of these effects--as small, medium, and large--do little to inform educational administration and policy making because they do not account for program costs. The author proposes an approach…

Using university cost data and student data from 176 members of university economics classes, this study finds that substantial monetary savings are realized by offering large classes, although their students have a 38% decreased probability of enrolling in future economics classes. Money savings may translate into enrollment losses. (SLD)

Combines budget and performance information to study the effects of high school size. Suggests that since small high schools are more effective for minority and poor students, and the budget per student is found to be similar for small and large schools, policymakers might support the creation of more small high schools. (SLD)

Improving school effectiveness is not a realistic policy goal for the '80s; the goal of maintaining effectiveness at reduced cost levels (i.e., improving efficiency) should be substituted. New technology is creating the potential for reducing costs in education and its adoption may help to overcome traditional political resistance to cost-based…

After a discussion of the underutilization of cost analysis in education, this article offers several explanations for the relative scarcity of cost-based evaluations in education and considers the potential for greater use of such studies. Developing frameworks to unpack costs may be a way of bringing about greater use of cost-based evaluation.…

Identifies, classifies, and describes the range of cost studies in education and how they may contribute to improved policy analysis. Presents three examples illustrating applications of cost analysis, and reflects on key issues from previous applications in educational policymaking and evaluation. (SLD)

A cost-utility framework is used as a basis for evaluating the relationship between the costs of developing alternative systems of information needed to support teacher certification and program accreditation, and the social value or utility of particular approaches. (RL)