#  College Inputs and Student Outcomes 

 



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### College Instructors and Student Outcomes

**Bettinger, Eric, B. T. Long, and Eric Taylor. (2012) “Are Graduate Students Good Instructors? The Impact of Teaching Fellows on Student Outcomes.” Under Revision.**

[**Bettinger, Eric and B. T. Long. (2010) “Does Cheaper Mean Better? The Impact of using Adjunct Instructors on Student Outcomes.”** ***Review of Economics and Statistics 92(3):*** **598–613.** ](/file_url/132)

In an effort to reduce labor costs, higher education, like many other sectors of the economy, has increasingly relied on part-time, temporary employees. In the case of colleges, this has translated into dramatic increases in the use of adjunct instructors. Critics argue that adjuncts reduce educational quality because they often have less education. On the other hand, adjuncts may specialize in teaching or be concurrently employed and therefore could enhance student learning experiences. This paper quantifies how adjunct instructors affect subsequent student interest and course performance relative to full-time faculty using a unique dataset of over 43,000 students. To deal with selection issues, the paper uses an instrumental variable strategy that exploits variation in the composition of a department's faculty over time. The results suggest that adjuncts often have a small positive effect on student enrollment patterns, especially in fields related to particular occupations.

**Bettinger, Eric and B. T. Long. (2005) “Do Faculty Members serve as Role Models? The Impact of Faculty Gender on Female Students.”** ***American Economic Review,*** **vol. 95, no. 2.**

Although women have matched or surpassed men in many educational outcomes, female students remain much less likely to major in quantitative, technical, and science-related fields. This under-representation may have serious implications for women’s returns to education, occupational segregation, and earning inequality. To address this problem, some suggest increasing mentoring opportunities for female students by hiring more women faculty members. This paper examines whether the presence of same-gender faculty members affects student interest in a subject using a comprehensive, longitudinal dataset of nearly 54,000 students. To address selection issues, we employ an instrumental variables strategy. The results suggest that female instructors do positively influence course selection and major choice in some disciplines thus supporting a possible role model effect. The findings provide insight into the potential impacts of policies designed to increase female representation on college faculties.

### Other College Inputs

**Bettinger, Eric and B. T. Long. “Mass Instruction or Higher Learning? The Impact of Class Size in Higher Education.” Under revision.**

This paper attempts to measure the effects of collegiate class size on student outcomes such as persistence, subsequent course selection, and major choice. While class size is a perennial issue in literature focusing on primary and secondary schooling, it has been largely ignored in research on higher education. Nonetheless, the effect of class size in college is potentially very important as it impacts everything from competitive rankings (20 percent of the U.S. News and World Report formula focuses on class size) to university budgets. Moreover, the range of possible class sizes is substantial in higher education (as many as 700 per lecture in our data) suggesting large differences in students' classroom experiences and possibly large effects on students' outcomes as well. Few researchers have focused on collegiate class size because data are rarely available. In addition, there are inherent selection problems as higher ability students appear to systematically avoid large classes. To address this hole in the literature, we use a unique data set that includes detailed class size, faculty, and student characteristics and track two cohorts of nearly 41,000 students in four-year, public colleges in Ohio.

### The Outcomes of Community College Students

[**Long, B. T. and Michal Kurlaender. (2009) “Do Community Colleges provide a Viable Pathway to a Baccalaureate Degree?”** ***Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis*** **31(1): 30-53.**](/file_url/133)

Community colleges play a significant role in American higher education. For many they offer open, affordable access to postsecondary training. However, as community colleges become a more prominent stepping stone for students who intend to eventually complete a bachelor's degree, questions arise about whether the transfer function of these institutions is robust. Using a detailed, administrative dataset of individuals in a large public higher education system, this paper examines the types of students that enter community college with the aspiration of getting a bachelor’s degree and how their outcomes compare to similar students who initially entered four-year colleges. To address concerns about selection bias in who chooses to begin at a two-year versus four-year institution, we employ two empirical methods: propensity score matching and instrumental variables. Each suggests that straightforward OLS estimates are significantly biased. However, even after accounting for selection, it appears that students who begin at community colleges still suffer a penalty. The instrumental variable estimates suggest students are 12 percent less likely to complete a bachelor's degree in six years and complete 16 percent fewer college credits during this time frame.

*See additional studies concerning community colleges and their students under the other research tabs.*