Michael B. Paulsen

Comparing the Determinants of Persistence for First-Generation and Continuing-Generation Students

In this study we examined and compared the determinants of first-to-second-year persistence for 1,167 first-generation and 3,017 continuing-generation students at four-year institutions, using data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Survey (Wine, et al., 2002). Because first-generation students are overrepresented in the most disadvantaged racial, income, and gender groups, we used a critical theorist perspective to frame the research problem, guide inquiry, and interpret results.

Diversity, College Costs, and Postsecondary Opportunity: An Examination of the Financial Nexus between College Choice and Persistence for African Americans and Whites

Historically, federal student aid focused on expanding financial access for low-income students, but this goal is no longer central to federal policy. This article examines how the financial reasons for choosing a college and the actual costs of attending college influence persistence by African Americans and Whites. It reveals diverse patterns of educational choice with continuities across the choice sequence. African Americans were more adversely influenced by grant inadequacy than Whites were. These findings support the argument that the decline in federal grants was a contributing factor to the gap in postsecondary opportunity that opened after 1980.

RECENT RESEARCH ON THE ECONOMICS OF ATTENDING COLLEGE: Returns on Investment and Responsiveness to Price

This article examines recent research on the private returns to investment in baccalaureate and sub-baccalaureate postsecondary education, the social returns to investment in higher education, and student responsiveness to prices and subsidies (e.g., tuition and financial aid). The analysis focuses on the implications of recent research on the economics of attending college for policy and practice in a variety of specific areas such as enrollment management; the role of community colleges and other sub-baccalaureate institutions relative to welfare-to-work programs, tuition taxcredit legislation, and the value of investing in credits even without credentials; the development of effective high-tuition, high-aid, and other state and institutional pricing strategies; and the inequities in the distribution of access and choice in higher education that is evident in the widening gaps in participation rates of white and minority youth and higher- and lower-income students, as well as in the growing concentration of lower-income students at-and the flight of middle- and upper-income students from-community colleges.

Higher education enrollment: The interaction of labor market conditions, curriculum, and selectivity

Abstract A number of recent studies have shown that conditions in the labor market for college graduates (LMCG) influence higher education enrollment. However, they have not considered how a colleges curriculum and selectivity may affect the sensitivity of its enrollment to fluctuations in the LMCG. To examine this interaction, a model of enrollment demand was developed and its parameters were estimated from 1965–1981 data on a set of 64 independent colleges in Iowa and Illinois. The results show that colleges with an emphasis on traditional arts and sciences tend to have greater enrollment growth when the LMCG is improving, colleges with an emphasis on occupational fields tend to have greater enrollment growth when the LMCG is deteriorating.

College Tuition: Demand and Supply Determinants from 1960 to 1986

Abstract: This paper reports on a study which tests many hypotheses from the recent literature on college tuition determination in the United States. The author estimated the parameters of a simultaneous equations model of college tuition determination, including market demand and supply equations for both private and public sectors, by applying two-stage least squares procedures to national time series data covering 1960–86. The persistence of hypothesized relationships through several decades of varying environmental conditions and institutional circumstances serves as the basis for a set of recommendations regarding the control of tuition increases at America’s colleges and universities.

Economic Models and Policy Analysis in Higher Education: A Diagrammatic Exposition

Policy analysis is a term that is used very often in education circles and seems to have multiple meanings depending on the background of the person using the phrase and the context in which it is used. Generally speaking, a policy is “a definite course or method of action selected from among alternatives and in light of given conditions to guide and determine present and future decisions” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2007), and an educational policy is “a specification of principles and actions, related to educational issues, which are followed or which should be followed and which are designed to bring about desired goals” (Trowler, 2003, p. 95). Who are the policy makers in higher education? For the postsecondary setting, policy makers would include entities and individuals who enact these laws and rules, including academic departments, colleges, institutions, and local, state, and national governments. The goal of educational policies is to lead to desired changes in behavior for participants within the education system. For example, a state-level educational policy may be implemented to help increase the percentage of high school students who go on to pursue a postsecondary education. The goal of this policy is to change the behavior of some high school students who may not be likely to attend college following graduation. As another example, an academic department may design policies to increase the quality of instruction given to undergraduate students. Here, the policy maker (academic department administration) is seeking to alter the actions of faculty in such a way that will lead to gains in instructional quality. Educational policy analysis focuses on how one should evaluate the effectiveness of alternative educational policies when choosing between them. The analysis of policy in higher education—an interdisciplinary field of study—is richly

Evaluating the influence of peer learning on psychological well-being

ABSTRACT The scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education is concerned with advancing pedagogical knowledge and teaching practice to improve student learning and associated outcomes in higher education. This study used data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education to examine the effects of peer learning experiences on gains in psychological well-being after four years of college. Results indicate a significant, positive influence of peer learning on the Ryff scale of psychological well-being [Ryff, C. D., and C. L. Keyes. (1995). “The Structure of Psychological Well-Being Revisited.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69 (4): 719–726]. In addition, peer learning had a significant positive effect on all but one of the Ryff well-being subscales (autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance). This research supports the use of peer learning as an important pedagogical practice.

Social Class and College Costs

During the past two decades there have been fundamental changes in the ways states and the federal government finance higher education (McPherson & Schapiro, 1998; Mumper, 1996; Paulsen, 1998; Paulsen & Smart, 2001; St. John, 1994). The federal government has shifted from using grants as the primary means of promoting postsecondary opportunity to using loans for this purpose. Decreases in state support for public colleges and universities have led to increases in tuition charges, which have shifted a larger portion of the burden of paying for college from the general public to students and their families (Breneman & Finney, 1997; Mumper, 1996; Paulsen, 1991,2000). Thus, the last two decades of the twentieth century can appropriately be characterized as a period of high tuition, high aid, but with an emphasis on loans rather than grants. How have these changes in the costs of college influenced the opportunities of students in different income groups to attain a higher education? To address this question we examined the ways that college costs affect the college-choice and persistence decisions of students in four different income groups. The idea that research on college students should focus on social class represents a departure from mainstream research on college students,

Private and Social Returns to Higher Education

In this chapter, we focus on the different ways in which economists measure the financial return on postsecondary education. We begin by providing some background on the work by economists on this topic, where studies of the return to postsecondary education grew out of the more general economic approach of cost-benefit analysis. We then explain how economists use aggregate-level data to measure the average return to postsecondary education, and demonstrate how the methods can be applied to different degree levels. Using data from 2011, we provide updated estimates of the return to earning an associate’s or a bachelor’s degree, as well as the average returns for all students who attend college as opposed to only graduates. In the Extension section of the chapter we discuss how economists use individual-level data to measure the financial benefits from college after controlling for observable student characteristics that may also affect earnings, and the emerging work on how to adjust these estimates for unobservable factors that can affect postsecondary decisions and earnings in labor markets. Finally, in the Policy Focus section we discuss policies relating to the use of return-on-education statistics to entice more students to go to college, and the extent to which students rely on loans to help finance their college education.

Current and Emerging Research on Economics of Higher Education

In this concluding chapter, we briefly revisit each of the topical areas in the economics of higher education that we have covered in Chaps. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of this book. Our purpose here is not to summarize the content of those chapters. Instead, for each broad topical area or chapter, we introduce and examine a subtopic that has been the focus of more recent and current economic research in each subject. Current research is the best indicator of future research. Therefore, by considering representative examples of recent research on a subtopic related to each chapter of the book, we hope to illustrate future directions toward which economic research has recently been, or is now, moving in each of the broad areas.