The Impact of State-Funded Merit Aid on the Retention of College Graduates

On Monday October 17th at 4pm in Olin 201, Professors Marian Manic and Marina Ptukhina will discuss the impact of state-funded merit aid on the retention of college graduates.

We investigate the relationship between broad-based merit aid programs sponsored by U.S.  state-level governments and the retention of college graduates. The impact of these programs is still debated and research in this field is limited. Using a unique data set for the 1988-2015 period and employing a difference-in-differences approach with adjustments for endogeneity bias, we find that: 

  1. states offering merit aid have higher workforce retention rates of college graduates,
  2. the effect is strongest immediately after graduation and decreases over time, and 
  3. states with larger spending on merit aid have higher average retention rates of graduates that may be weakening faster over time compared with lower-spending states. 
🙞 🙜
 

BIOS:


Marian Manic is Associate Professor of Economics and Chair of the Economics Department. He was born and grew up in Moldova in Eastern Europe. Marian got his Ph.D. in Economics as well as an International MBA with a specialization in Finance degrees from the University of South Carolina. His main research fields are related to regional and urban economics, international economics, migration, international remittances, education, and economic development. At Whitman, Marian teaches courses in Finance, Macroeconomics, and Regional and Urban Economics.

  


Marina Ptukhina (Pa-too-he-nuh) is an Assistant Professor of Statistics at Whitman College.  Marina was born and raised in Kharkiv, Ukraine. She joined Whitman College in 2016 after completing her Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.  Marina is interested in the statistical modeling, design, and analysis of research studies and their applications. Her research includes applications of statistics to economics, biostatistics, and statistical education.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ethnomathematics: Computations among Maya calendars

Image
Monday, November 4 at 4pm in Olin 201. Ximena Catepillán, PhD, professor emerita of Millersville University will talk about computations among Maya calendars. Mesoamerican calendars were many and complex. A good number of studies have been done to decipher them. By the arrival of Hernan Cortes in 1519 in what current day Mexico is, there were 21 calendars in use while 4 of them were extinct. Using astronomical observations, the Maya developed an elaborate system of calendars, among them the Tzolkin Calendar, the Haab Calendar, the Round Calendar, and the Long Count. Which operations did the Maya use to perform their calendrical computations? While they used a vigesimal system to write the numbers, this system was never used in connection with days. No inscriptions use vigesimal numbers but rather quasi-vigesimal numbers. In spoken numbers, a mix of decimal and vigesimal notation appears.  They also needed to divide to do some of the calendar conversions. Ximena will illustrate cale...
Read more

Graphs and Hypergraphs and Topology, Oh My!

Image
Monday October 21 at 4pm in Olin 201. Emilie Purvine, of the Pacific Northwest National Lab will talk about how mathematical structures and concepts can be great models of real-world data. For example, differential equations have a long history of success in applied mathematics to model dynamics found in rivers and oceans, the atmosphere, and molecular systems (just to name a few!). Network science is an area of applied math that uses graph structures to model relational systems like social, collaboration, and transportation networks. Graphs, however, are limited to modeling pairwise relationships among entities. Hypergraphs and topological spaces provide alternate models of relational systems that allow for arbitrary sized and structured relationships. In this talk, Dr. Purvine will introduce the mathematical concepts of graphs, hypergraphs, and topology and show how they are used to model real-world data from a variety of applications including biological systems, chemi...
Read more

Mathematical Sciences Foundry Talks

This semester, we will have a series of talks on Mondays at 4pm in Olin 201 loosely organized around the mathematical sciences. Hosted by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Whitman College, we'll provide some snacks and a speaker (or speakers) that will share some aspect of the mathematical sciences. The talks will be accessible to undergraduate STEM students. Some of the talks will be in-person by Whitman students and/or professors. Others will be remote perhaps featuring alums in industry or academics from other institutions.  This series of talks is organized by Professors Marina Ptukhina and Albert Schueller. Reach out to them if you have an idea for a talk.
Read more