Funded by the H-1B visa program, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) American Apprenticeship Initiative (AAI) provided funding to 46 grantees across the country to expand registered apprenticeship into new sectors, such as healthcare, and to populations underrepresented in apprenticeships. DOL commissioned an evaluation of the AAI grants to build…

This report investigates the multifaceted value of postsecondary education for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students, particularly those involved in federally funded TRIO programs. Amid growing concerns over student debt and the perceived worth of higher education, this study provides a comprehensive analysis of both the economic and non-economic…

To understand the causes and consequences of polarized demand for government expenditure, we conduct three field experiments in the context of public higher education. The first two experiments study polarization in taxpayer demand. We provide information to shape beliefs about social returns on investment. Our treatments narrow the political…

This article describes a conceptual and empirical approach for estimating a human capital production function of child development that incorporates mother- or child-fixed effects. The use of mother- or child-fixed effects is common in this applied economics literature, but its application is often inconsistent with human capital theory. We…

Career and technical education (CTE) has existed in the United States for over a century, and only in recent years have there been opportunities to assess the causal impact of participating in these programs while in high school. To date, no work has assessed whether the relative costs of these programs meet or exceed the benefits as described in…

Despite growing evidence on the impacts of the climate crisis on access to education and learning outcomes, there is a clear gap in identifying the additional costs the climate crisis imposes on education systems. Further, there is little evidence demonstrating the financial and socio-economic returns on specific climate-smart investment in…

University foundations in China have existed for less than 30 years. As of December 2017, less than 20% of Chinese universities (525 foundations) had registered a foundation. Considering the scarcity of reports on this topic, the increasing importance, and the difficulty in accessing specific data, this study identified Chinese foundation…

Quality non-degree credentials can lead to good jobs and family-sustaining wages. But not all non-degree credentials lead to good outcomes -- and when they don't, they entrench economic inequalities that impact people of color and women. National Skills Coalition's new report "The Non-Degree Credential Quality Imperative" encourages…

How do poor entrepreneurs trade off investments in business enterprises versus children's human capital, and how do these choices influence intergenerational socio-economic mobility? To examine this, we exploit experimental variation in household income resulting from a one-time relaxation of household liquidity constraints (Field et al., 2013),…

The Maturing ADL in Multinational Exercises (MADLx) project aims to design and develop a Return on Investment (ROI) analytics dashboard for use in multinational and coalition exercises. A key component of creating the dashboard was knowing the large and varied group of exercise stakeholders' requirements for learning analytics and associated…

This paper estimates spillover effects of investing in new early childhood education centers on the outcomes of children that did not attend those centers. I find positive and economically significant spillover effects in the EDI domain of communication skills and general knowledge. Furthermore, never-enrolled children have also experienced an…

It is a well-established principle that being asked to contribute has a significant effect on the frequency and level of philanthropic behavior. This brief summarizes data from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey about advancement investment, specifically fundraising and…

As Mississippi prepares to support the statewide postsecondary attainment goal, understanding the returns to higher education is crucial to determining where to invest resources. Ithaka S+R has partnered with the Woodward Hines Education Foundation to provide Mississippi policymakers, advocates, and legislators with information they need to make…

The "2018 NACUBO-TIAA Study of Endowments" provides the most comprehensive analysis of endowment investment returns, asset allocations, and governance policies and practices at hundreds of U.S. higher education institutions and affiliated foundations. The report provides extensive data to help institutions evaluate their investment…

While a lot of research has been done on the role of philanthropy in the United States' higher education system, there is considerably less literature on U.S. and non-U.S. foundations that have funded international scholarship and fellowship programs that focus on social justice, particulary in the last two decades. This study shares findings and…