Modelling the U.S. Market for Higher Education and Evaluating Public Funding Policies: Theory and Estimation

当前与高等教育资助模式相关的问题使美国高等教育市场的显著特征成为关注的焦点：竞争的公共和私营部门的共存;大学的特点在部门内和部门之间的高度分化;以及根据居住地、家庭收入和学历向学生收取不同学费的自由度。令人惊讶的是，很少有关于公立和私立大学之间互动的研究可以为政策辩论提供信息。这项研究提供了一个模型，其特点是高等教育提供者的互动，并可用于评估替代公共资金政策。 这项研究将至少在三个重要方面推进研究前沿。首先，PI将提供一个新的框架，其中包括私立大学和公立大学之间竞争的重要特征。该框架将反映公立和私立机构之间目标的差异、资源的差异以及学费和入学政策限制的差异。其次，PI将对其模型进行实证测试。他们将收集关于公立和私立大学以及家长和学生选择的新数据集。他们建议开发新的估计器，可以处理他们的模型产生的复杂定价和排序模式。最后，他们建议探讨其工作的政策影响。他们将研究州和联邦财政援助政策的变化，及其对学生成绩和成就的影响，以及社会弱势群体接受高等教育的机会。 该研究开发，估计和应用一个新的框架来理解高等教育市场和研究教育政策问题。这一框架大大推进了最先进的研究，详细分析了私立和公立大学面临的目标和限制因素的差异。拟议的研究将提供高等教育公私竞争的第一个估计模型，因此是理论，计算和估计相结合的前沿。一般均衡方法对于研究州和联邦政策的变化以及入学和学费政策的相关变化尤为重要。 该研究探讨了当前重要的公共政策问题。研究结果将通过会议、研讨会和研究论文传播，以促进广泛获得成果。博士学生将参与研究并开展相关研究，从而为他们的培训和本提案主题的知识体系做出贡献。

Current issues related to the funding model for higher education bring to the forefront striking features of this market in the U.S.: the coexistence of competing public and private sectors; a high degree of differentiation in college characteristics within and across sectors; and latitude for charging differential tuition to students based on place of residence, household income, and academic qualifications. Surprising little research on the interaction between colleges, public and private, is available to inform the policy debate. This research provides a model that characterizes the interaction of providers of higher education and can be used to evaluate alternative public funding policies. This research will advance the research frontier in, at least, three important dimensions. First, the PIs will provide a new framework that incorporates important features of competition between private and public universities. The framework will capture differences in objectives between public and private institutions, differences in resources, and differences in constraints on tuition and admission policies. Second, the PIs will undertake empirical testing of their model. They will assemble a new data set on public and private universities as well as on parental and student choices. They propose to develop new estimators that can deal with the complex pricing and sorting patterns generated by their model. Finally, they propose to explore the policy implications of their work. They will examine changes in state and federal financial aid policies, and their impact on student attainment and achievement, as well as access to higher education by disadvantaged groups of society. The research develops, estimates, and applies a new framework for understanding the market for higher education and for studying education policy issues. This framework significantly advances the state-of-the art in research providing a detailed analysis of the differences in objectives and constraints faced by private and public universities. The proposed research will provide the first estimated model of public-private competition in higher education and is thus on the frontier of integrating theory, computation, and estimation. The general-equilibrium approach is particularly important for study of changes in state and federal policies and the associated changes in admission and tuition policies. The research explores important current public policy issues. Research findings will be disseminated via conferences, seminars, and research papers to promote broad access to the results. Ph.D. students will participate in the research and develop related research, thus contributing both to their training and to the body of knowledge on the subject matter of this proposal.