As the college class of 2011 graduates in the aftermath of the Great Recession, some graduates are struggling to find a good job--or any job at all. As a result, many are questioning whether the time and expense of college was worth it. The authors try to answer this question by comparing the economic benefits of a college degree to its costs, as…

A misplaced obsession with the size of federal budget deficits remains the single biggest obstacle to enacting new measures to create jobs on a scale commensurate with the crisis in the American labor market. Even assuming that budget scoring rules can't be changed, at the very least policy makers should be aware of the true impact a given piece…

In recent decades, much attention has been focused on student achievement in the United States. Many policy initiatives have been attempted in an effort to bolster achievement, including increasing school revenue, decreasing class size, expanding early childhood programs, and introducing vouchers and charter schools, to name a few, but not all of…

In the literature of higher education cost function study, enough knowledge is created in the area of economy scale in the context of developed countries but the knowledge of input demand is lacking. On the other hand, empirical knowledge in the context of developing countries is very meagre. The paper fills up the knowledge gap, estimating a…

Policymakers aiming to close the well-documented achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students have increasingly turned their attention to issues of teacher quality. A number of studies have demonstrated that teachers are inequitably distributed across student subgroups by input measures like experience and qualifications, as well…

This paper employs a stochastic production frontier model to assess the efficiency of the senior secondary schools in the Gambia. It examines their efficiency in using and mixing the educational inputs of average teacher salary, average teacher education, average teacher experience and students-to-teacher ratio in producing the number of students…

Over recent years governments have been placing more emphasis on innovation as a source of national competitiveness. Governments now assess their investments across many areas in terms of the contribution that such investments make to increasing innovation. This has been especially significant for education and in particular for the development of…

This systematic review establishes a comprehensive understanding of research trends and the findings of current studies that focus on small-group communication in post-secondary online courses. The review includes 18 journal articles which are categorised and summarised on the basis of their common themes. This review finds that a majority of the…

There is growing interest in leveraging Title IV student aid to improve college completion. Advocates have proposed linking funding in the Pell and Campus-Based Programs to measures of college performance. However, to do so in an equitable and efficient manner, raw measures of college output, such as rates of graduation and academic progress, must…

How successful was the class of 2012 at securing employment after graduation? What does a "typical day" of work look like for graduate business school alumni? What impact do job tasks and work environments have on job satisfaction? How do alumni assess the value of their graduate management degree? The findings in the 2013 Alumni…

Almost 7 million young Americans (age 16-24) are insufficiently attached to school or work. Based on conservative estimates, we can generate over $1 billion just by helping a mere 0.1 percent earn a high school credential and complete their first year of college through Back on Track Designs. This brief lays out the cost of setting up these GED-…

The study investigated the costs and benefits of international education to Zimbabwean students studying in South African Universities. The objectives of the study were to investigate the actual and perceived benefits of international education to students. The study also investigated the impact of international education on the lives of students,…

This study aimed to identify the classroom and school characteristics that are associated with student achievement in mathematics and Serbian language in primary schools in Serbia. The study sample consisted of 119 public primary schools, 253 classrooms, and 4,857 third-grade students. Variables from 3 past research paradigms--input-output,…

Our complex and intricate economic system is comprised of many different types and sizes of businesses, ranging from big corporations to small individually owned entities. The genre of business is and can be profoundly complex. Independence can vary from small single person mom and pops to consortiums of multiple partners, silent partners and…

Investing in higher (tertiary) education is one of the more significant decisions a person can make. In some countries, such as Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, and the United States, the direct costs of higher education can be large, often requiring a significant investment of an individual's personal funds, either in up-front payments or loan…