Availability of Higher Education and Educational Outcomes: Quantifying the Impacts of College Openings and Cohort Size

Research has established the benefits of higher education and the importance of affordability, however less is known about how the availability of higher education affects educational attainment. By constructing a comprehensive dataset on college openings in the U.S. from 1969 to 1991, I show that exogenous variation in two-year and four-year college availability, caused by changed birth cohort sizes and local college openings, substantially affects educational attainment. New four-year colleges increase the likelihood of obtaining a Bachelor\u27s degree, while new two-year colleges only affect Associate\u27s degree attainment. Additionally, results show that students from larger cohorts are crowded out of four-year colleges. This crowd-out results in lower lifetime educational attainment by pushing students to two-year colleges

The educational effects of school start times

The combination of changing sleep patterns in adolescence and early school start times leaves secondary school classrooms filled with sleep-deprived students. Evidence is growing that having adolescents start school later in the morning improves grades and emotional well-being, and even reduces car accidents. Opponents cite costly adjustments to bussing schedules and decreased time after school for jobs, sports, or other activities as reasons to retain the status quo. While changing school start times is not a costless policy, it is one of the easiest to implement and least expensive ways of improving academic achievement

Cognitive Function and Human Capital Accumulation Across the Day: Evidence from Randomized School Schedules

This study examines how variation of within-day cognitive function affects human capital accumulation. Cognitive function, which neurobiologists have found varies widely across the day, has thus far been an important omission in the economics literature. We quantify its role on human capital accumulation using data from five cohorts of college freshman at the United States Air Force Academy, where students face randomized scheduling and a common set of classes and exams. We find clear evidence that daily fluctuations in cognitive function affects academic achievement-a student does 0.25 standard deviations better at her highest observed ability than at her worst. Cognitive function is affected by the time of day that learning takes place, but also importantly, by the context of a student\u27s schedule and the degree of cognitive fatigue at that time of day- students perform 0.05 standard deviations worse if they have back-to-back classes than if they just had a break. Differences in effects along the ability distribution suggest that overall effi- ciency gains are possible. Prioritizing the schedules of those most impacted by cognitive fatigue would be equivalent to improving their teacher quality by a standard deviation in 40% of offered classes. Findings suggest that a re-organization of students\u27 daily school schedules is a promising and potentially low-cost educational intervention