About
Bio
Susan Dynarski is an economist and the Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor of Education at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on how education policy shapes economic opportunity and inequality, with an emphasis on college access, financial aid, student debt, and K–12 schooling. She came to these questions as a first-generation college graduate and former union organizer. She has written extensively for the New York Times and testified before the Senate Finance and HELP Committees and the House Ways and Means Committee on education and tax policy.
She is a faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the National Academy of Education, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is past president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy and the Midwest Economics Association, and a Carnegie Fellow. In 2017 she received the Spencer Foundation Award for Excellence in Education Research; the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators awarded her the Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award.
From 2008 to 2021 Dynarski was professor of public policy, education, and economics at the University of Michigan, where she co-founded the Education Policy Initiative and the Michigan Education Data Center.
Video profile
Giving Back to Other First Generation College Students (2016). A video profile on Dynarski’s background as a first-generation college graduate and how it shapes her research on college access and inequality.
Links
Contact
Email
susan_dynarski@gse.harvard.edu
Address
Harvard University
Gutman Library
Cambridge, MA 02138
Mentoring
Dynarski has trained doctoral students, master's students, and postdoctoral scholars who now work across universities, government, research organizations, philanthropy, and policy institutions.
For media
Short bio, photos, and CV for event organizers and journalists.
Short bio
Full bio
Susan Dynarski is an economist and the Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor of Education at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on how education policy shapes economic opportunity and inequality, with an emphasis on college access, financial aid, student debt, and K–12 schooling. She came to these questions as a first-generation college graduate and former union organizer. She has written extensively for the New York Times and testified before the Senate Finance and HELP Committees and the House Ways and Means Committee on education and tax policy.
She is a faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the National Academy of Education, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is past president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy and the Midwest Economics Association, and a Carnegie Fellow. In 2017 she received the Spencer Foundation Award for Excellence in Education Research; the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators awarded her the Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award.
From 2008 to 2021 Dynarski was professor of public policy, education, and economics at the University of Michigan, where she co-founded the Education Policy Initiative and the Michigan Education Data Center.
Photos
Photos for download
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Website portrait
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