Working Papers Education Facet Area of Focus - Working Papers Jay Shimshack Craig Volden Edgar O. Olsen Sarah Turner Adam Leive Christopher J. Ruhm Daniel W. Player Daphna Bassok Isaac Mbiti Sophie Trawalter (-) Benjamin Castleman Facet People - Working Papers EdPolicyWorks: Center for Education Policy and Workforce Competitiveness Facet UVA Partner - Working Papers Working Paper Education Stacking the Deck for Employment Success: Labor Market Returns to Stackable Credentials Authors: Katharine Meyer, Kelli A. Bird, Benjamin Castleman With rapid technological transformations to the labor market along with COVID-19 related economic disruptions, many working adults return to college to obtain additional training or credentials. Using a comparative individual fixed effects strategy and an administrative panel dataset of enrollment and employment in Virginia, we provide the first causal estimates of credential “stacking” among working adults. Learn more Working Paper Education Pushing College Advising Forward: Experimental Evidence on Intensive Advising and College Success Authors: Benjamin Castleman, Denise Deutschlander, Gabrielle Lohner Growing experimental evidence demonstrates that low-touch informational, nudge, and virtual advising interventions are ineffective at improving postsecondary educational outcomes for economically-disadvantaged students at scale. Intensive in-person college advising programs are a considerably higher-touch and more resource intensive strategy; some programs provide students with dozen of hours of individualized assistance starting in high school and continuing through college, and can cost thousands of dollars per student served. Learn more Working Paper Education Nudges Don’t Work When the Benefits Are Ambiguous: Evidence from a High-Stakes Education Program Authors: Benjamin Castleman, Francis X. Murphy, Richard W. Patterson, William L. Skimmyhorn The Post-9/11 GI Bill allows service members to transfer generous education benefits to a dependent. We run a large scale experiment that encourages service members to consider the transfer option among a population that includes individuals for whom the transfer benefits are clear and individuals for whom the net-benefits are significantly more ambiguous. We find no impact of a one-time email about benefits transfer among service members for whom we predict considerable ambiguity in the action, but sizeable impacts among service members for whom education benefits transfer is far less ambiguous. Learn more Working Paper Education Negative Impacts From the Shift to Online Learning During the COVID-19 Crisis: Evidence from a Statewide Community College System Authors: Kelli A. Bird, Benjamin Castleman, Gabrielle Lohner The COVID-19 pandemic led to an abrupt shift from in-person to virtual instruction in Spring 2020. Using a difference-in-differences framework that leverages within-course variation on whether students started their Spring 2020 courses in person or online, we estimate the impact of this shift on the academic performance of Virginia’s community college students. We find that the shift to virtual instruction resulted in a 6.7 percentage point decrease in course completion, driven by increases in both course withdrawal and failure. Faculty experience teaching a course online did not mitigate the negative effects of moving to virtual instruction. Learn more Working Paper Education Who Should Re-enroll in College? The Academic and Labor Market Profile of Adults with Substantial College Credits But No Degree Authors: Kelli A. Bird, Benjamin Castleman, Brett Fischer, Benjamin T. Skinner Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs in the wake of the COVID-19 health and economic crisis, and a sizable share of these job losses may be permanent. Unemployment rates are particularly high among adults without a college degree. Recent state policy efforts h Learn more Working Paper Education College Advising at a National Scale: Experimental Evidence from the CollegePoint initiative Authors: Zach Sullivan, Benjamin Castleman, Eric Bettinger In recognition of the complexity of the college and financial aid application process, and in response to insufficient access to family or school-based counseling among economically-disadvantaged populations, investments at the local, state, and federal level have expanded students’ access to college and financial aid advising. Experimental and quasi-experimental studies of these programs demonstrate that they can generate substantial improvements in the rate at which low-income students enroll and persist in college. Learn more Working Paper Education Nudging at Scale: Experimental Evidence from FAFSA Completion Campaigns Authors: Kelli A. Bird, Benjamin Castleman, Jeffrey T. Denning, Joshua Goodman, Cait Lamberton, Kelly Ochs Rosinger Do nudge interventions that have generated positive impacts at a local level maintain efficacy when scaled state or nationwide? What specific mechanisms explain the positive impacts of promising smaller-scale nudges? We investigate, through two randomized controlled trials, the impact of a national and state-level campaign to encourage students to apply for financial aid for college. Learn more Working Paper Education The Effect of Reduced Student Loan Borrowing on Academic Performance and Default: Evidence from a Loan Counseling Experiment Authors: Andrew Barr, Kelli Bird, Benjamin Castleman Student loan borrowing for higher education has emerged as a top policy concern. Policy makers at the institutional, state, and federal levels have pursued a variety of strategies to inform students about loan origination processes and how much a student has cumulatively borrowed, and to provide students with greater access to loan counseling. Learn more
Working Paper Education Stacking the Deck for Employment Success: Labor Market Returns to Stackable Credentials Authors: Katharine Meyer, Kelli A. Bird, Benjamin Castleman With rapid technological transformations to the labor market along with COVID-19 related economic disruptions, many working adults return to college to obtain additional training or credentials. Using a comparative individual fixed effects strategy and an administrative panel dataset of enrollment and employment in Virginia, we provide the first causal estimates of credential “stacking” among working adults. Learn more
Working Paper Education Pushing College Advising Forward: Experimental Evidence on Intensive Advising and College Success Authors: Benjamin Castleman, Denise Deutschlander, Gabrielle Lohner Growing experimental evidence demonstrates that low-touch informational, nudge, and virtual advising interventions are ineffective at improving postsecondary educational outcomes for economically-disadvantaged students at scale. Intensive in-person college advising programs are a considerably higher-touch and more resource intensive strategy; some programs provide students with dozen of hours of individualized assistance starting in high school and continuing through college, and can cost thousands of dollars per student served. Learn more
Working Paper Education Nudges Don’t Work When the Benefits Are Ambiguous: Evidence from a High-Stakes Education Program Authors: Benjamin Castleman, Francis X. Murphy, Richard W. Patterson, William L. Skimmyhorn The Post-9/11 GI Bill allows service members to transfer generous education benefits to a dependent. We run a large scale experiment that encourages service members to consider the transfer option among a population that includes individuals for whom the transfer benefits are clear and individuals for whom the net-benefits are significantly more ambiguous. We find no impact of a one-time email about benefits transfer among service members for whom we predict considerable ambiguity in the action, but sizeable impacts among service members for whom education benefits transfer is far less ambiguous. Learn more
Working Paper Education Negative Impacts From the Shift to Online Learning During the COVID-19 Crisis: Evidence from a Statewide Community College System Authors: Kelli A. Bird, Benjamin Castleman, Gabrielle Lohner The COVID-19 pandemic led to an abrupt shift from in-person to virtual instruction in Spring 2020. Using a difference-in-differences framework that leverages within-course variation on whether students started their Spring 2020 courses in person or online, we estimate the impact of this shift on the academic performance of Virginia’s community college students. We find that the shift to virtual instruction resulted in a 6.7 percentage point decrease in course completion, driven by increases in both course withdrawal and failure. Faculty experience teaching a course online did not mitigate the negative effects of moving to virtual instruction. Learn more
Working Paper Education Who Should Re-enroll in College? The Academic and Labor Market Profile of Adults with Substantial College Credits But No Degree Authors: Kelli A. Bird, Benjamin Castleman, Brett Fischer, Benjamin T. Skinner Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs in the wake of the COVID-19 health and economic crisis, and a sizable share of these job losses may be permanent. Unemployment rates are particularly high among adults without a college degree. Recent state policy efforts h Learn more
Working Paper Education College Advising at a National Scale: Experimental Evidence from the CollegePoint initiative Authors: Zach Sullivan, Benjamin Castleman, Eric Bettinger In recognition of the complexity of the college and financial aid application process, and in response to insufficient access to family or school-based counseling among economically-disadvantaged populations, investments at the local, state, and federal level have expanded students’ access to college and financial aid advising. Experimental and quasi-experimental studies of these programs demonstrate that they can generate substantial improvements in the rate at which low-income students enroll and persist in college. Learn more
Working Paper Education Nudging at Scale: Experimental Evidence from FAFSA Completion Campaigns Authors: Kelli A. Bird, Benjamin Castleman, Jeffrey T. Denning, Joshua Goodman, Cait Lamberton, Kelly Ochs Rosinger Do nudge interventions that have generated positive impacts at a local level maintain efficacy when scaled state or nationwide? What specific mechanisms explain the positive impacts of promising smaller-scale nudges? We investigate, through two randomized controlled trials, the impact of a national and state-level campaign to encourage students to apply for financial aid for college. Learn more
Working Paper Education The Effect of Reduced Student Loan Borrowing on Academic Performance and Default: Evidence from a Loan Counseling Experiment Authors: Andrew Barr, Kelli Bird, Benjamin Castleman Student loan borrowing for higher education has emerged as a top policy concern. Policy makers at the institutional, state, and federal levels have pursued a variety of strategies to inform students about loan origination processes and how much a student has cumulatively borrowed, and to provide students with greater access to loan counseling. Learn more