In this dissertation, I present an examination of the economics of education through three chapters. In the first paper, I study the overrepresentation of elite university graduates in senior positions in public administration. Using rich administrative data from Chile, I employ a stacked fuzzy regression discontinuity design to estimate the…

There has been growing national political interest in promoting community college education as a way of improving economic opportunities for disadvantages members of local workforces. Recent work mainly focuses on human capital gains, but few studies have investigated how community college credentials can affect the level of job prestige…

Institutions of higher learning today rely on tuition dollars to function. During a time when the pool of high school graduates is shrinking, colleges and universities must look to alternative target markets to meet enrollment goals, including those transferring from community college. Community college transfers have unique attributes that…

Using archival records preserved by Iowa's community colleges, private four-year colleges, and public universities, this dissertation examines how Iowa's established higher education institutions responded to and adjusted to the "presence" of new two-year colleges from 1965 to 1975. This decade was a critical period of development for…

I examine what the characteristics of competitive community colleges are and how the ranking systems identify the ideal qualities of community colleges through a comparison of community colleges to prestigious four-year institutions. I provide information regarding the institutional differences and the characteristics of top-ranked community…

This article was written in response to concerns that have been expressed about the possible consequences of an increasing number of countries overtaking the United States in educational attainment. International statistics on educational attainment were analyzed, questions about comparability of data were discussed, and the impact of different…

Canadian community colleges operate within a trying market environment. They compete against a diversified group of post-secondary institutions, ranging from small and relatively unknown for-profit vocational colleges to larger and more prestigious public universities. To date, there has been no effort to empirically examine how Canadian community…

This article presents the methods, materials, and manpower required to create a strategic leadership program for promoting, sustaining, and advancing institutional significance. The functionality of the program is based on the Original Case Study Design (OCSD) methodology, in which participants are given actual college issues to investigate from a…

Higher education has seen significant changes in the student experience in the past 10 years. For the past decade, everything from student attitudes about college to the technology they use every day has impacted their satisfaction with, and perception of, the college experience. This report is a comparison of student satisfaction, separated by 10…

When President Obama delivered the commencement address at Miami Dade College (MDC) in April, it was yet another coup for the high-profile institution--but not a first. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also were graduation speakers, as the community college continues to be a magnet for national and international dignitaries. MDC has…

The Ruffalo Noel Levitz (RNL) Satisfaction-Priorities Surveys are the national standard for benchmarking student satisfaction in higher education. Since 1994, more than 2,900 colleges and universities have used the surveys to evaluate students' concerns that influence student success, college completion, student recruitment, strategic planning,…

This study examined reasons for student choice of a specific community college. The site of the study is a west Texas public, two-year institution with 4,674 students, full- and part-time, as of fall 2008. The top six reasons for selection were transferability of courses, available academic programs and quality, campus location, cost, available…

For more than two decades, the national standard for benchmarking student satisfaction in higher education has been the Ruffalo Noel Levitz Satisfaction-Priorities Surveys. Since their beginning in 1994, these benchmark surveys have been used by more than 2,900 U.S. colleges and universities to evaluate students' concerns that correspond with…

The purpose of this study was to identify factors that influenced college choice of students who recently enrolled (current freshmen and sophomores) in agriculture programs at Oklahoma's land-grant university, as compared to recently enrolled students (current freshmen and sophomores) in selected agriculture programs at public community colleges…

Student governance is one way for students to become involved on college campuses. Student government allows participants to represent the needs of the student body and to voice their concerns to college administrators. In a qualitative study, five presidents of community college student government associations were interviewed. The student…