Data on institutional saving in US higher education have not been available until now, yet they are useful in several ways. They describe how various types of schools are doing financially, and whether their present behavior is sustainable. They complete the picture of sources and uses of...

It is increasingly clear that price competition is escalating in the market for higher education. We attempt to understand how price competition would work in higher education and explore the likely long run equilibrium structure of prices in that context. We draw inferences using both...

This paper was prepared as a chapter for College Decisions: How Students Actually Make Them and How They Could, edited by Caroline Hoxby for publication by the University of Chicago Press for the NBER. In this chapter, we describe the potential significance of student peer effects for the...

A study was conducted to see whether peer effects could be observed among undergraduates at Williams College, an elite four-year liberal arts school. Specifically, the study explored whether students in the bottom third of their class, with average SAT's of about 1300, would perform better in...

A study was conducted to examine peer effects among undergraduates at Williams College, a highly selective four-year liberal arts school. Specifically, the study explored whether students would perform better writing about newspaper articles they read and discussed in academically homogeneous or...

Two studies explored the experience and performance of students at Williams College in three-person groups that were homogeneous or heterogeneous in rated academic ability. In accord with hypotheses from Festinger's (1954) social comparison theory, students in academically homogeneous groups had...

In this paper we present estimates of roommate and institution based peer effects. Using data from the College & Beyond survey, the Freshman survey, and phonebook data that allows us to identify college roommates - we estimate models of students' political persuasion and intellectual engagement....

This paper presents empirical evidence on factors influencing choices made by members of the Annapolis Group of Liberal Arts colleges regarding whether to operate primarily in-person, primarily online or some flexible alternative during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. This paper examines the...

The market for undergraduate education has many similarities to an arms race. A school's position - relative to other schools - determines its success in attracting students and student quality. Its position, in turn, is largely determined by the size of its student subsidies, the difference...

Colleges and universities in the US differ markedly in their access to economic resources, hence in what they can do for their students. National (IPEDS) data are used here to describe the resulting hierarchy that?s reflected in schools? spending on their students, the prices those students pay,...