The distribution of college majors changed markedly between the 1970s and 1980s as fewer students completed degrees in low-skill fields such as education and letters and more graduated in high-skill fields such as engineering and business. This shift was most dramatic for females, who previously...

A growing body of empirical evidence shows teacher quality to be the most important schooling factor predicting students' learning gains. Unfortunately, US public schools face difficulties attracting the best and brightest college graduates. Over the last several decades there has been a notable...

While there is evidence of a substantial and rising labor market premium associated with college attendance, little is known about how this premium varies across institutions of different quality and across time. Previous research which has estimated the return to college quality has not taken...

The college wage premium for new labor market entrants rose sharply during the 1980s. We ask how much of this change arose from changes in the skill level of the typical college graduate. We find that skills attained prior to college, as measured by standardized test scores and high school...

Professors Richard J. Murnane and John B. Willett set out to capitalize on recent developments in education data and methodology by attempting to answer the following questions: How can new methods and data be applied most effectively in educational and social science research? What kinds of...