Does High School Economics Make a Difference?

Since the 1990s, increasing amounts of resources have been devoted to teaching economics in grades K – 12. This raises the question of how these increased resources have impacted students entering college economics courses. This paper attempts to measure the impact high school economics courses have on students enrolled in college-level principles of macroeconomics courses at a Midwestern university. An OLS model is run on student performance on a pretest and posttest of economic knowledge, as well as on the percentage change in performance on the pretest and posttest. A probit model is run on students’ course grades. Results indicate that for students enrolled in this course, completing a high school economics course has no impact on any of the aforementioned variables. It is hoped that this result will be a stepping-stone in painting the current picture of economic education in grades K – 12 in the United States and that such a picture will bring with it policy discussions as to how to most effectively use resources in this area to achieve desired results with respect to economic literacy.