We synthesize and critique federal fiscal policy during the Great Recession and COVID-19 pandemic. First, the amount of aid during both crises was inadequate to meet policy goals. Second, the mechanisms used to distribute funds were disconnected from policy goals and provided different levels of aid to districts with equivalent levels of economic…

This dissertation presents two essays on econometric methods for program evaluation and policy choice. In Chapter 1, I develop a statistically optimal way of using data to make policy decisions when the performance of counterfactual policies is only partially identified. Specifically, I consider a class of statistical decision problems in which…

Food insecurity among low income students has increased during COVID-19, and could persist for months or years for students saddled with educational debt or facing uncertain unemployment. Access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for children has a proven effect on reducing childhood food insecurity, and when students…

The last comprehensive reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA) occurred in 2008, and the law has been overdue for another reauthorization for nearly a decade. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) has worked on reauthorization for nearly a decade. In this report, NASFAA updates its recommendations to…

Enacted in 2014, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) was designed to increase collaboration among workforce systems at the federal, state, and local levels to integrate the array of programs and services available to job seekers and businesses through American Job Centers (AJCs). WIOA requires the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to…