Objective: Performance funding (PF) policies allocate a portion of state funding to colleges based on student outcomes. This study is the first to account for policy type and design differences, and explores the impact of performance funding on three levels of credential completions: short-term certificates, medium-term certificates, and associate’s degrees. Method: We create a panel dataset of 751 two-year colleges from years 1990 to 2013 using data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. We conduct a series of analyses using difference-in-differences with the inclusion of college- and state-level control variables. Results: We find that, on average, performance funding produces no significant changes in completions of any of the three credentials. Policy types characterized by a greater proportion of funding tied to the base budget, mission differentiation in performance metrics, inclusion of underrepresented student metrics, and longer periods of operating years produce an increase in short-term certificates, no significant change in medium-term certificates, and a decrease in associate’s degrees. Contributions: This study’s findings suggest that because awarding more short-term certificates is a relatively quick and cost-effective way to capture performance funds, colleges might be engaging in a path of least resistance by churning out short-term certificates and redirecting focus away from associate’s degrees, which is concerning given that short-term certificates generally offer limited labor market benefits compared to medium-term certificates and associate’s degrees. Our results also underscore the importance of policy designs in explaining differential impacts on credential completion.

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The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education worldwide as educational systems made the decision to close schools to contain the spread of the virus. The duration of school closures varied greatly internationally. In this study, we use international variation in school closure policies to examine the effects of school closures on student achievement. Specifically, we use representative trend data from more than 300,000 students in 29 countries to examine whether the length of school closures is related to changes in student achievement before and after the outbreak of COVID-19. We observe a significant and substantial negative effect of school closures on student reading achievement. The estimated effect implies that a year of school closures corresponds roughly to the loss of a little more than half a school year of learning. This effect is even more pronounced for socioeconomically disadvantaged students and those without home computer access.

School Improvement Grants (SIGs) exemplify a capacity-building investment to spur sustainable changes in America’s persistently lowest-performing schools and stimulate the economy. This study examines both short- and longer-term effects of the first two cohorts of SIG schools from four locations across the country. Dynamic difference-in-differences models show that SIGs’ effects on achievement in Grades 3 to 8, as measured by state test scores in math and English language arts, gradually increased over the three reform years and were largely sustained for 3 or 4 years afterward. Evidence on high school graduation rates, though less robust, also suggests SIGs had positive effects. SIGs’ effects on students of color and low-socioeconomic-status students were similar to or significantly larger than the overall effects.

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