We study how colleges shape their students' voting habits by linking millions of SAT takers to their college-enrollment and voting histories. To begin, we show that the fraction of students from a particular college who vote varies systematically by the college's attributes (e.g. increasing with selectivity) but also that seemingly similar…

One of the main aims of Core Maths qualifications when they were introduced into the post-16 curriculum in 2014 was to help students develop their understanding of maths and its application to different subject areas, particularly in relation to further study (e.g., higher education). In this article, we explore whether Core Maths is fulfilling…

Colleges have increasingly turned to predictive analytics to target at-risk students for additional support. Most of the predictive analytic applications in higher education are proprietary, with private companies offering little transparency about their underlying models. We address this lack of transparency by systematically comparing two…

Understanding large-scale patterns in student course enrollment is a problem of great interest to university administrators and educational researchers. Yet important decisions are often made without a good quantitative framework of the process underlying student choices. We propose a probabilistic approach to modelling course enrollment…

The underidentification of students with autism is a well-documented phenomenon that implies minority children are less likely to receive autism-specific interventions and services vital for better outcomes. Previous research has found that minority children are less likely to be identified as having autism, but recent changes in federal reporting…

There is no national study examining the rate of enrollment of students with disabilities in charter schools. We examined whether students with disabilities were significantly less likely to enroll in charter schools as compared to non-charter public schools accounting for state level variation using data for the entire national population. We…

This study investigates whether the completion of an optional sandwich work placement enhances student performance in final year examinations. Using Propensity Score Matching, our analysis departs from the literature by controlling for self-selection. Previous studies may have overestimated the impact of sandwich work placements on performance…

This report describes the adult student's experience with prior learning assessment (PLA) using student record data from 72 degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the United States, primarily focusing on the data from 69 of those institutions based on the more detailed data provided by those institutions to the study. Researchers from the…

This report describes the adult student's experience with prior learning assessment (PLA) using student record data from 72 degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the United States, primarily focusing on the data from 69 of those institutions based on the more detailed data provided by those institutions to the study. Researchers from the…

We use administrative data to measure whether attending a charter school in Denver, Colorado, reduces the likelihood that students are newly classified as having a disability in primary grades. We employ an observational approach that takes advantage of Denver's Common Enrollment System, which allows us to observe each school that the student…

Community college is a gateway to postsecondary education for millions of college students in the United States yet only 13% of those intending to earn a bachelor's degree do so within six years of enrolling (Shapiro et al., 2017). The process of transferring from one postsecondary institution to another is fraught with structural, financial, and…

This paper examines the effect of the introduction of an academic dismissal (AD) policy (i.e. an intervention, which can lead to compulsory student withdrawal) on student dropout, student graduation rates and satisfaction with the study program. Using a difference-in-differences type of estimator, we compare programs that introduced an AD policy…

Adult community college students, age 25 and older, have been understudied in the extensive college transfer literature, which otherwise focuses on traditional-age college students age 18 through 24, or on students of unspecified age. According to the theoretical framework of academic momentum articulated by Clifford Adelman (2006), enrollment…

This paper considers whether subject choice at 14-16 influences post-16 transitions, taking into account prior academic attainment and school characteristics, and if so, whether this accounts for socioeconomic, gender, and ethnic differences in access to post-16 education. We consider post-16 progression to full-time education, A-levels, and…

Inequalities do not end once students enter higher education. Yet, the majority of papers on the effectiveness of higher education aid examine its impact on college enrolment. In this paper, we provide evidence on the causal impact of means-tested but otherwise unconditional financial aid on the outcomes of students who have already enrolled in…