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Working Paper
Navigating Higher Education Insurance: An Experimental Study on Demand and Adverse Selection
We conduct a survey-based experiment with 2,776 students at a non-profit university to analyze income insurance demand in education financing. We offered students a hypothetical choice: either a federal loan with income-driven repayment or an income-share agreement (ISA), with randomized framingof downside protections. Emphasizing income insurance increased ISA uptake by 43%. We observe that students are responsive to changes in contract terms and possible student loan cancellation, which is evidence of preference adjustment or adverse selection. Our results indicate that framing specific ...
Working Paper
Predicting College Closures and Financial Distress
In this paper, we assemble the most comprehensive dataset to date on the characteristics of colleges and universities, including dates of operation, institutional setting, student body, staff, and finance data from 2002 to 2023. We provide an extensive description of what is known and unknown about closed colleges compared with institutions that did not close. Using this data, we first develop a series of predictive models of financial distress, utilizing factors like operational revenue/expense patterns, sources of revenue, metrics of liquidity and leverage, enrollment/staff patterns, and ...
Working Paper
College Networks and Re-employment of Displaced Workers
We provide the first evidence on the role of college networks in the re-employment of displaced workers. An extensive literature examines the consequences of layoffs, but the factors which facilitate re-employment are relatively under-studied. Using administrative data and a cross-cohort design, we find that network connections with actively-hiring employers increase the re-employment rate. This result is driven by re-employment at contact’s firms suggesting that a stronger network does not improve worker quality more broadly. These results suggest that college has the potential to improve ...
Discussion Paper
Decomposing Changes in Higher Education Return on Investment Over Time
The economic returns to attending college are a crucial aspect of discussions surrounding student debt and rising tuition. As higher quality data on student outcomes has become available, studies have attempted to quantify the financial value of a college degree across different dimensions and contexts (Webber, 2014; Webber, 2016; Itzkowitz, 2021; Cooper, 2021; Miller and Akabas, 2022).
Working Paper
Losing insurance and psychiatric hospitalizations
We study the effect of losing insurance on psychiatric – mental health disorder (MHD) and substance use disorder (SUD) – hospital-based care. Psychiatric disorders cost the U.S. over $1T each year and hospitalizations provide important and valuable care for patients with these disorders. We use variation in public insurance coverage (Medicaid) eligibility offered by a large-scale and unexpected disenrollment in the state of Tennessee in 2005 that lead to 190,000 individuals losing their insurance. Medicaid enrollees are at elevated risk for psychiatric disorders. Following the ...