Bullying is widely prevalent in the US. Although anti-bullying laws have been implemented across the country since 1999, bullying prevalence rates remain high. Research suggests that being a bully or a bully victim or both makes an individual more likely to experience worse physical, mental, and financial health. This dissertation comprises of…

Objective: Student loan debt has become a growing crisis. Considering that women are more likely than men to take on student loans and more likely to take on larger amounts, we examine whether the effects of student loans on young adults' mental health and substance use differ by gender. Participants: We used the National Longitudinal Survey of…

In this dissertation, I quantify the impact of uncertainty on schooling postsecondary choices, study the returns to higher education degrees, and analyze the effects of policies that intend to reduce college education costs. In the second and third chapters, I employ structural Roy models and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth…

What are the economic consequences of college noncompletion? Given escalating student debt, is "some college" still worth it? This article applies augmented inverse probability weighting to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to estimate the causal effect of college noncompletion on income and financial hardship. Although…

This study examines the association between educational loans and college graduation rates, with a focus on differences by race and ethnicity. Data come from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Results from the event history analyses indicate that educational loans are positively related to college graduation rates, but only up to a…

Many students enroll in less selective colleges than they are qualified to attend, despite low graduation rates at these institutions. Some scholars have argued that qualified students should enroll in the most selective colleges because they have greater resources to support student success. However, selective college attendance is endogenous, so…

As the recent economic crisis has demonstrated, inequality often spans credit and labor markets, supporting a system of cumulative disadvantage. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this research draws on stigma, cumulative disadvantage and status characteristics theories to examine whether credit and labor markets intersect…