Essays on the Economics of Higher Education Policy
Open Access DepositedThis dissertation examines the role of higher education policy on students’ educational and labor market outcomes. It consists of three chapters.In Chapter 1, I study the impact of parent borrowing on their children’s college educational outcomes by evaluating the effect of the Federal Parent PLUS loan program using detailed administrative data in Texas between 2007 and 2015. Due to changes in credit standards, more parents of credit constrained students were able to take out Parent PLUS loans if their child started college in years where the credit standards were loosened. I exploit this variation and estimate difference-in-differences models that compare students who are credit constrained to students who are not across years with varying credit standards. PLUS loans increase the likelihood enrolling in four-year institutions. Correspondingly, students spend more time in school and spend less time working while in school. Finally, PLUS loans increase the likelihood of graduating within five years. In Chapter 2, I study a student loan forgiveness policy. With student loan debt on the rise, proposals for both blanket and targeted loan forgiveness policies have been at the center of recent US policy debate. In this paper, I study the impact of one of the first federal level student loan forgiveness program in the United States on labor market outcomes. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, implemented in October 2007, forgives the federal student loans of those working in public service jobs after ten years of work and repayment. This potential for forgiveness creates an incentive to enter and/or stay in public service jobs. I use administrative data from Texas and a difference in differences design to study the impact of this policy on worker behavior. I study entry into the public sector as well as retention in the sector. My results show no significant impact on the labor market outcomes of graduates of law school nor graduates of master’s degree programs. In Chapter 3, we study the role occupational licensing requirements play in higher education. In the United States, licenses are required for entry into many different occupations. Requirements vary by state and occupation, but many licenses require a minimum number of training or instructional hours. We consider the impact of these hours requirements on students and postsecondary institutions, with a particular focus on cosmetology (also known as hairstyling or beauty)—the field that requires the highest number of training hours in the largest number of states. We implement a difference-in-difference design based on state-level changes in licensing hours for cosmetologists between 2011 and 2019. We ask how and whether changes to hours requirements influence student outcomes and institutional behavior. We find that lowering required hours is likely beneficial for students, as it raises completion, lowers tuition, and expands enrollment among some groups of students. Larger institutions appear to reduce their tuition by less than smaller institutions. We find no detectable effects on student debt or the earnings of cosmetologists.
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