The federal government has a long history of investing in programs for feeding children, starting with federal aid for school lunch programs in the 1930s. Today, federal child nutrition programs support food served to children in schools and a variety of other institutional settings. The child nutrition programs support meals and snacks served to…

Nearly 1 in 6 adults in the U.S. has outstanding student loan debt. Among those between the ages of 18 and 29, 1 in 3 reported having student loan debt. Meanwhile, the share of new entrepreneurs aged 20-34 declined from 34% to 27% between 1996 and 2019. The relationship between student loan debt and entrepreneurship sits at the intersection of…

In addition to academic programming, Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (TPSID) have a directive to ensure that enrolled students with intellectual disability (ID) are prepared for gainful employment. One study found students with ID who obtained a paid job while enrolled in a college or university…

This thesis examines the budget reductions of six high and six low poverty school districts in California and Texas during the Great Recession. While recent studies have supported the positive influence of spending on student outcomes, few have looked at what happens when financial shocks constrain budgets. The study blends the National Center for…

South African higher education experiences low outcomes regardless of the significant financial investments made into the sector to address student poverty through financial aid. Concerning is that more than half of the low-income students who receive funding from the government do not graduate which points to the presence of other deprivations…

From March 2020 through March 2021, three laws providing federal funding for elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education were enacted in response to the national emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic declared by President Trump on March 13, 2020. The second of these laws provided a higher amount of funding than the first, and the third…

It is clear that young people bore the brunt of the pandemic's impact. Disrupted learning, sometimes stretching for two years, forced many students off track and behind academically. Leaders are now faced an unprecedented need to make smart investments with federal relief funds in efforts that accelerate student learning. District leaders should…

The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented global event that disrupted higher education learning environments in unique ways. This study explored the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on undergraduate students' academic progress in higher education at Saint Louis University. The outcomes of interest were four-year cumulative grade point average…

The objectives of the audit were to determine whether the Kentucky Department of Education (Kentucky) had an adequate oversight process in place to ensure that (1) local educational agencies' (LEA) American Rescue Plan (ARP) Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) plans met applicable requirements and (2) LEAs use ARP ESSER funds…

Rising college prices and student debt, the growth and collapse of online for-profit colleges, and expansions of federal grant, loan, and loan forgiveness policies have increased calls for more accountability in our higher education system. And there is significant consensus among lawmakers that the existing set of quality assurance policies for…

In March, 2021, President Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP), within the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund to address the specific and urgent needs of children and youth experiencing homelessness. U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona emphasized that services provided under the ARP-HCY…

This dissertation consists of two chapters, both of which study the wealth inequality using heterogenous agent general equilibrium model. In particular, the first chapter focuses on a government policy and its implications on wealth inequality. The second chapter incorporates cost to high return assets to generate realistic wealth mobility in the…

This is the second in a series of success stories about how arts organizations, states, schools and other entities are using funding from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) and the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) to support arts education. Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS) is one of the nation's 20th largest…

Starting in May 2020, the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund transferred billions of dollars through state departments and on to districts to support COVID-19 recovery efforts. The funding, which lasts through 2024, represents the largest one-time infusion of federal dollars ever provided to K-12 school districts and has…

In this dissertation I use modern microeconomic methods to examine the impact of K-12 education policy interventions on student outcomes. In the first chapter I explore how increased funding for school policing and sentiment surrounding school policing can have downstream effects on student discipline, and how these effects vary by student and…