Education Final Paper
The final term paper is aimed at preparing you for your future career, whether in academics or elsewhere, where you would be asked to initiate and execute original studies on public policy by yourself (and sit in judgment on similar studies by others). I want you to conduct original research (with an emphasis on quantitative aspects of it) on some particular issue in educational finance, and present the results in the form of a paper. The paper will try to build on the tools and skills you have mastered during this and other courses at TC. Of course, for many of you this might be the first time that you are undertaking a research project by yourself, and our job is to assist you in the process. Please feel free to contact me anytime if you need any advice, or encounter any obstacles, while on this
You can work in pairs, or solo. Groups of more than two students are not allowed. The grade for the final paper only depends on the quality of the paper – whether you work solo or in pairs only determines the length of the paper. Each person in a joint submission gets the same grade as the other – unless you explicitly note that each of you want to be graded separately, based only on the sections that you wrote. Note that, as mentioned below, joint papers must be longer – think about 15 pages for a solo effort and 20-25 pages for a joint effort, in the interest of fairness.
Education Final Paper
You can work on any topic relating to educational finance – either in the US, or elsewhere in the world. Also, you should analyze some data – though of course you do not need to run regressions. I will be happy to assist you in the process of finding relevant data.
For example, some potential topics can be as follows. (I list topics mostly from the U.S. context, as I am more familiar with U.S. data – but feel free to use any data, from any country. For example, I have uploaded a couple of examples from previous years – you will see that one student used China Statistical Yearbook.)
- A lot of U.S. states and school districts have seen declining student enrollments over the last 10, 15, 20 years. Do these districts see a rise average per pupil spending (which would be the case if total spending is relatively sticky and is not adjusted downwards immediately following a decline in student counts)?
Education Final Paper
- Which are the public universities which are enrolling more out-of-state students and more international students (so as to raise more revenues – as out-of-state tuition and tuition from international students are much higher than in-state tuition)? Is it only the public flagships – the top public college in each state? Or do we see a broad range of public colleges enrolling more out-of-state students and international students – and are they doing it while cutting back on enrollment of in-state students?
- What are the trends in K-12 spending on various categories in recent years? Many commentators argue that instructional spending has been declining as a share of total school spending – are we hiring more non-teachers (administrators and other non-teaching personnel) compared to teachers? Is this trend true – and true for all regions and all types of schools?
- Similarly, what are the trends in college spending on various categories in recent years? Many higher education experts observe that instructional spending has been declining as a share of total college spending – is this trend true? And does it hold true for all regions and all types of colleges?
Education Final Paper
- What are the trends in private school enrollment in recent years – both before and after COVID? How big is existing private school enrollment in states which have launched ambitious private school voucher programs (Iowa, Arizona, Indiana and Florida)?
- What are the recent trends in college tuitions, and how do these vary – by state, by college selectivity, by student populations, etc.? How do in-state and out-of-state tuitions vary by college?
- This is how U.S. colleges distributed the COVID money that they got from the federal government to its students. What are the trends you see, and would you have distributed the money in a similar way? What alternate options can you think of? https://www.chronicle.com/article/colleges-gave-out-nearly-8-billion-in-covid-aid-in-2022-heres-who-got-the-money
- In recent years there have been big concerns about K-12 teacher recruitment and retention. See, for example, President Bailey quoted in Newsweek this week. What are the recent trends in teacher salaries, and how do these vary by state and district? https://www.newsweek.com/american-children-struggling-academically-1883618
Education Final Paper
For each of the above questions, I can suggest interesting recent research – and source of data. These are all relatively stream-lined but important issues, and the findings will be very instructive.
Format
- 12 point, Times New Roman font (like this Word file)
- Line spacing of 1.5.
- 1-inch margins on all sides
- Numbered pages
- The main text should be between 15 pages for single submissions and 20-25 pages for joint submissions.
- References, tables and charts are extra and not included in the page limit. (You may put in a data appendix if you want, but it is not necessary.)
- APA style of citation for references (in which you refer to sources by inserting parentheses in the text giving the author, date of publication, and the relevant page if necessary) and then list all the sources alphabetically on a References page at the end of the paper. When citing an author with two or more publications in a given year, distinguish them with letters after the date e.g. 1999a, 1999b.