Research
Dynarski's research examines how education policies shape opportunity, mobility, and inequality. Her work focuses on college access, financial aid, student debt, and the design of policies that help students move through school and into the labor market. She also studies K-12 reforms, charter schools, early childhood investments, and methods for using administrative data to measure educational outcomes.
What We Know
Reviews, syntheses, and policy overviews that summarize what the evidence says about education, mobility, student aid, and college success.
The Behavioral and Distributional Implications of Aid for College
Explains why simple comparisons misstate the effects of college aid and argues for quasi-experimental and experimental evidence.
The Lengthening of Childhood
An overview of how prolonged education and delayed labor-market entry have reshaped the transition to adulthood.
Into College, Out of Poverty? Policies to Increase the Postsecondary Attainment of the Poor
A review of policies that aim to increase college attainment among low-income students.
Financial Aid Policy: Lessons from Research
A synthesis of evidence on how aid affects college enrollment, persistence, and completion.
Behavioral Policy Interventions to Address Education Inequality
A review of behavioral interventions designed to reduce inequality in educational access and attainment.
Discussion of “Policies and Payoffs to Addressing America’s College Graduation Deficit”
The US College Loans System: Lessons from Australia and England
A comparative analysis of U.S. student loans, drawing lessons from Australia and England.
An Economist's Perspective on Student Loans in the United States
A policy overview of the U.S. student loan system and its implications for students, taxpayers, and higher education.
Addressing Non-Financial Barriers to College Access and Success: Evidence and Policy Implications
A review of evidence on the informational, administrative, and behavioral barriers that shape college access and completion.
College Costs, Financial Aid, and Student Decisions
A synthesis of research on how prices, aid, and institutional design affect students’ college choices.
Economic and Social Mobility: New Directions for Data, Research, and Policy
A consensus report on how data and research can deepen understanding of mobility and opportunity.
Mapping the Gaps
Descriptive work on inequality, access, and how policy systems create barriers for students and families.
Tax Policy and Education Policy: Coordination or Collision?
Shows how tax policy and education policy can collide in the design of college subsidies.
Who Benefits from the College Saving Incentives? Income, Educational Expectations and the Value of the 529 and Coverdell
Documents who benefits from 529 plans and Coverdell education savings accounts.
The Cost of Complexity in Federal Student Aid: Lessons from Optimal Tax Theory and Behavioral Economics
Explains how complexity in aid rules can reduce take-up and weaken policy effectiveness.
The Feasibility of Streamlining Aid for College Using the Tax System
Examines whether tax data can simplify student aid eligibility and delivery.
Complexity and Targeting in Federal Student Aid: A Quantitative Analysis
Quantifies the tradeoff between targeting aid precisely and keeping the aid system simple.
Inequality in Postsecondary Attainment
Documents widening income gaps in college entry and completion.
Student Aid Simplification: Looking Back and Looking Ahead
Shows how complexity in federal student aid creates barriers for students and families.
Simplifying Tax Incentives and Aid for College: Progress and Prospects
Proposes ways to simplify overlapping tax and aid policies.
Tax Benefits for College Attendance
Describes how tax-based aid works and why its design can make college subsidies hard to use.
The Gap within the Gap: Using Longitudinal Data to Understand Income Differences in Student Achievement
Shows how standard measures of poverty can miss important differences in the depth and persistence of income disadvantage.
Low-Income Students Lose Ground
Shows how COVID-era disruptions widened existing gaps for low-income students.
Learning from Policy Change
Evidence from real-world policy shifts, including financial aid, curriculum, community college, and charter-school reforms.
Can Families Smooth Variable Earnings?
Examines how families respond to income volatility and what that implies for policy design.
Hope for Whom? Financial Aid for the Middle Class and Its Impact on College Attendance
Estimates how Georgia’s HOPE scholarship affected college attendance and who benefited.
Does Aid Matter? Measuring the Effect of Student Aid on College Attendance and Completion
Estimates how grant aid affected college attendance and completion.
Loans, Liquidity, and Schooling Decisions
Examines how borrowing constraints shape schooling decisions.
The New Merit Aid
Examines the rise of merit aid and its consequences for college access and public spending.
Building the Stock of College-Educated Labor
Estimates how merit aid changed college attendance and degree production.
Inputs and Impacts in Charter Schools: KIPP Lynn
Estimates how KIPP Lynn affected student achievement and what school inputs may explain the gains.
Accountability and Flexibility in Public Schools: Evidence from Boston's Charters and Pilots
Estimates the effects of Boston’s charter and pilot schools on student outcomes.
Cheaper By the Dozen: Using Sibling Discounts at Catholic Schools to Estimate the Price Elasticity of Private School Attendance
Uses sibling discounts at Catholic schools to estimate how families respond to tuition prices.
Who Benefits from KIPP?
Estimates which students benefit from attending KIPP charter schools.
Labor Market Returns to Community College Awards: Evidence From Michigan
Estimates the labor-market returns to community college credentials.
Stand and Deliver: Effects of Boston's Charter High Schools on College Preparation, Entry, and Choice
Estimates how Boston charter high schools affected college preparation, entry, and choice.
Are Expectations Alone Enough? Estimating the Effect of a Mandatory College-Prep Curriculum in Michigan
Estimates whether requiring a college-prep curriculum changes students’ attainment.
Estimating the Effects of a Large, For-Profit Charter School Operator
Estimates the effects of attending schools run by a large for-profit charter operator.
The Impact of the Michigan Merit Curriculum on High School Math Course-Taking
Estimates how a statewide college-prep curriculum changed students’ course-taking.
Testing What Works
Randomized and experimental evidence on program design, defaults, information, and early investments.
Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Childhood Investments on Postsecondary Attainment and Degree Completion
Experimental evidence on how early childhood investments affected postsecondary attainment and degree completion.
Dual-Credit Courses and the Road to College: Experimental Evidence from Tennessee
A randomized trial testing whether access to dual-credit courses changes students’ path to college.
Designed to Fail: Effects of the Default Option and Information Complexity on Student Loan Repayment
An experiment showing how defaults and complexity shape student loan repayment behavior.
Closing the Gap: The Effect of a Targeted, Tuition-Free Promise on College Choices of High-Achieving, Low-Income Students
A randomized trial of a targeted tuition-free promise for high-achieving, low-income students.
The Power of Certainty: Experimental Evidence on the Effective Design of Free Tuition Programs
A randomized trial showing how the design of a free-tuition promise shaped students’ college choices.
Degrees of Mobility: Shifting Low-Income Students to Higher Quality Colleges
A follow-up to Closing the Gap, using the same HAIL Scholarship experiment to estimate the effect of college quality on degree completion, selectivity, and earnings.
Improving Research
Methods, data resources, and guidance for building stronger evidence on education policy.
Introduction to Special Issue
Introduces a special issue on better measurement and stronger evidence in education research.
The Missing Manual: Using National Student Clearinghouse Data to Track Postsecondary Outcomes
A practical guide to using National Student Clearinghouse data to track postsecondary outcomes.
Descriptive Analysis in Education: A Guide for Researchers
A guide to using descriptive analysis to answer education-policy questions.
How Important Are Fixed Effects and Time Trends in Estimating Returns to Schooling? Evidence from a Replication of Jacobson, Lalonde and Sullivan, 2005
A methodological paper on how common modeling choices affect estimates of returns to schooling.
Lottery-Based Evaluations of Early Education Programs: Opportunities and Challenges for Building the Next Generation of Evidence
A guide to using lotteries to build stronger evidence on early education programs.