The Dynamics of Educational Attainment for Black, Hispanic, and White Males
This paper estimates a dynamic model of schooling attainment to investigate the sources of discrepancy by race and ethnicity in college attendance. When the returns to college education rose, college enrollment of whites responded much more quickly than that of minorities. Parental income is a strong predictor of this response. However, using NLSY data, we find that it is the long-run factors associated with parental background and income and not short-term credit constraints facing college students that account for the differential response by race and ethnicity to the new labor market for skilled labor. Policies aimed at improving these long-term factors are far more likely to be successful in eliminating college attendance differentials than are short-term tuition reduction policies.
Abstract : Over the past five decades, several disparate organizations within DoD have established over 130 separate programs that improve the quantity and quality of professional scientists and engineers in the United States. The programs range from pre-college through postdoctoral education and are generally conducted on a decentralized, independent basis. Are they doing well? What attributes accompany the best programs? What can and should be done to improve the programs? This study selected 32 programs representing all levels of education and major sponsoring organizations. All programs were visited and assessed using a standard rating instrument designed for the project. The resulting analysis produced recommendations for five broad, complementary actions by OSD. The actions were intended to encourage institutional programs to take on the characteristics of the most successful programs and to establish coordination and guidance mechanisms without imposing undue regulation and needless control.