Collaborative Research: Skills, Majors, and Jobs: Does Higher Education Respond?

快速的技术进步导致技能过时，然而教育机构和学生对劳动力市场的这些变化反应迟缓。本研究项目将使用一个关于技能需求变化和按专业和专业内容划分的大学入学人数的大数据集来调查两个相互关联的问题：(i)每个大学专业与什么技能相关？技能需求如何随时间和空间变化？（ii）高等教育开设的课程和学生修读的课程如何因应技能需求的变化？这项研究将基于一段时间内所有招聘信息的数据，以及一个州所有课程（及其内容）的数据。研究结果可以帮助机构通过快速改变课程内容来应对技能需求，并帮助教育政策制定者更好地制定计划。调查结果不仅可以帮助学生选择专业，还可以指导他们选择专业所需的课程和技能。通过为快速变化的技术工作场所的技能需求和技能培训提供政策投入，本研究将帮助美国教育机构提供经济所需的技能，从而促进经济快速增长，提高美国人的福祉。该项目将使用燃烧玻璃项目和特拉华成本项目的合并数据，该项目拥有学分、课程和教师的部门级面板数据，以及学生课程、准实验方法和机器学习技术的个人级数据，以调查大学生和大学行政部门如何应对劳动力技能需求的变化。具体而言，它调查了与每个大学专业相关的技能，专业内部跨专业技能需求如何随空间和时间而变化，以及技能投资如何响应劳动力市场技能需求的变化。以前的研究主要集中在技能习得的需求方面；然而，该项目将通过探索大学课程的几个方面，使这些供应反应成为可能，来研究技能供应（由大学提供者和学生）如何应对技能需求的变化。准实验方法允许对技能需求变化对人力资本投资的影响进行因果识别。该项目将探讨低年级、高年级和研究生阶段的不同反应。这项研究的结果将为使技能投资适应技能需求变化的政策提供指导，从而提供所需的技能，促进经济更快增长。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Rapid technical progress leads to skill obsolescence, yet educational institutions and students are slow to respond to these changes in the labor market. This research project will use a large data set on changes in skill demand and college enrolments by major and the content of majors to investigate two interrelated questions: (i) what skills are associated with each college major and how does skill demand vary over time and space? (ii) how do higher education course-offerings and student course-taking respond to changes in demand for skills? The research will be based on data on all job postings over a time matched with data on all course offering (and their content) in a state. The results can help institutions respond to skill demand by rapidly changing the content of their curricula and educational policy makers plan better. The results will also help guide students not only in their choice of majors but also the courses and skills they choose to acquire in their chosen majors. By providing inputs into policies that align skill needs and skill training in a rapidly changing technological work place, this research will help US educational institutions provide the skills the economy needs, hence lead to rapid economic growth and improved well-being of Americans. This project will use merged data from the Burning Glass project and the Delaware Cost Project which has department level panel data on credits, courses and faculty as well as individual level data on student course taking, quasi-experimental methods and machine learning techniques to investigate how college students and college administration respond to changes in labor skill demand. Specifically, it investigates what skills are associated with each college major, how within major cross-major skills demand differ across space and through time, and how skill investment responds to changes in skill demand in the labor market. Previous studies have focused on the demand side of skill acquisition; this project will however look at how skill supply (by university providers and students) respond to changes in skill demand by exploring several aspects university curriculum that makes these supply responses possible. The quasi-experimental methods permit causal identification of the effect of changes in skill demand on human capital investment. The project will explore differential responses at lower-division, upper-division, and graduate levels. The results of this research will provide guidance on policies to align skill investment to changes in skill demand and in so doing will provide the needed skills and lead to faster economic growth.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.