The Impact of After-School Programs: Interpreting the Results of Four Recent Evaluations

Within the last decade, after-school programs have moved from the periphery to the center of the national education policy debate. The demand for after-school care by working parents and a new focus on test-based accountability are the two primary reasons. Reflecting these pressures, federal funding for after-school programs has grown dramatically over the last half-decade. Between 1998 and 2002, federal funding for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program grew from $40 million to$1 billion. State and local governments have also increased their funding, with California committing itself to a six- fold increase in funding for after-school programs over the next few years.As a wave of evaluation results has recently become available, policymakers are understandably eager to see evidence that these investments are paying off. The purpose of this review is to summarize the results of four recent evaluations, to draw the lessons we have learned so far, and to identify the unanswered questions

Evaluating the Impact of the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant Program

In the Fall of 2000, the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program dramatically changed the menu of college prices offered to residents of the District of Columbia. The program allowed residents of D.C. to attend public institutions in Maryland and Virginia and pay the same tuition as residents of those states. Between 1998 and 2000 (the first year of the program), the number of D.C. residents attending public institutions in Virginia and Maryland more than doubled. When public institutions in other states were included in subsequent years, the number of D.C. residents attending these institutions also nearly doubled. The increases were largest at non-selective public 4-year institutions in the mid-Atlantic states, particular predominantly black public institutions in Maryland and Virginia. College entry rates by D.C. residents also seemed to increase. The number of first-time federal financial aid applicants, the number of first-year college students receiving Pell Grants and the number of district residents reported as freshmen by colleges and universities nationwide all increased by 15 percent or more, while the number of graduates from D.C. public high schools remained flat.

Rising Public College Tuition and College Entry: How Well Do Public Subsidies Promote Access to College?

Though economists have spent the past decade analyzing the rising payoff to schooling, we know much less about the responses of youth or the effectiveness of policies aimed at influencing those decisions. States and the federal government currently spend more than $53 billion annually, hoping to promote greater access to college. This paper evaluates the price sensitivity of youth, using several sources of non-experimental variation in costs. The bulk of the evidence points to large enrollment impacts, particularly for low-income students and for those attending two-year colleges. The states have chosen to promote college enrollment by keeping tuition low through across-the-board subsidies rather than using more targeted, means-tested aid. As public enrollments increase, this has become an expensive strategy. Means-tested aid may be better targeted. However, the evidence of enrollment responses to such targeted aid is much weaker. After a federal means-tested grant program was established in 1973, there was no disproportionate increase in enrollment by low-income youth. Given the number of public dollars at stake, the two sets of results should be reconciled.

Is the German apprenticeship system a panacea for the US labour market?

Advocates of apprenticeship programs often argue as if it is simply a matter of historical accident which has hindered such investment by U.S. firms. This paper explores the structure of incentives undergirding the German system of apprenticeship training. First, we describe three characteristics of the German labor market which may lead firms to accept part of the cost of general training, even in the face of worker turnover. In the second part of the paper, we compare labor market outcomes for apprentices in Germany and high school graduates in the United States. Apprentices in Germany occupy a similar station within the German wage structure as held by high school graduates in the V.S. labor market. Finally, we provide evidence that the problem of forming labor market bonds is particularly acute for minority youth --in Germany as well as in the U.S.. We discuss some implications for the vocational training debate in the U.S.

Coherent communication link using diode-pumped lasers

Work toward developing a diffraction limited, single frequency, modulated transmitter suitable for coherent optical communication or direct detection communication is discussed. Diode pumped, monolithic Nd:YAG nonplanar ring oscillators were used as the carrier beam. An external modulation technique which can handle high optical powers, has moderate modulation voltage, and which can reach modulation rates of 1 GHz was invented. Semiconductor laser pumped solid-state lasers which have high output power (0.5 Watt) and which oscillate at a single frequency, in a diffraction limited beam, at the wavelength of 1.06 microns were built. A technique for phase modulating the laser output by 180 degrees with a 40-volt peak to peak driving voltage is demonstrated. This technique can be adapted for amplitude modulation of 100 percent with the same voltage. This technique makes use of a resonant bulk modulator, so it does not have the power handling limitations of guided wave modulators