Current Projects
Improving Vertical Transfer. I study how state and institutional policy can be used to improve bachelor’s degree attainment for community college students. My current project in this area explores how transfer-related policy developed at the state level reaches students through the implementation and interpretation of college-level administrators. The purpose of this study is both to understand how governance structures and organizational power dynamics influence the implementation of policy, as well as to learn concrete ways in which we can improve policies aimed at increasing community college to university transfer.
Defining High Quality Workforce Training. My second area of focus is how community colleges can provide high-quality career and technical training that improves labor market access, and access to living wages, for workers. In ongoing work I am estimating the effect of a large influx of state funding to a set of career and technical training programs in Tennessee on student outcomes including probability of employment, average quarterly wages and employment match. This state program required that technical colleges develop new training programs in collaboration with local employers, other schools and local economic development agents. My study provides evidence on the feasibility and efficacy of transforming workforce training through this type of multi-sector collaboration.
Understanding College Student Employment. Finally, along with collaborators at the Community College Research Center, I am conducting an in-depth study of college student employment, with a particular focus on the Federal Work-Study Program. In collaboration with our education agency partners at a large public university system, we are conducting a randomized control trial evaluation of the Federal Work-Study Program to estimate the impact of participating in FWS on students’ academic and labor market outcomes. While we continue to gather data for our impact study we are making use of unique descriptive data from student surveys and interviews to explore how students make decisions about working during college and how working intersects with academics.