How do economists measure the broader social impacts (economic growth, health outcomes, etc.) of schooling? Answer by Alex Eble, Professor at Columbia University
The newly minted university is just the latest institution attempting to reframe its image at a time of enrollment declines and public skepticism about higher education. What’s in a name? Apparently a lot for some higher ed institutions. “Names matter because they are a reflection of identity,” said DeRionne P. Pollard, president of Nevada State University, a regional public four-year institution that was called Nevada State College until last month. Students and alumni had been pushing for a name change for years before Pollard took the helm in 2022. She was open to the idea, but it was a call from a student in Nevada State’s nursing program that convinced her the change was necessary.
A few years ago, one of us (Abhijeet) wrote a cautionary note that the “standard deviation” measure in education evaluations in development economics was not typically comparable. That note was based on the informal observation that tests in development evaluations seemed to vary a lot from one study to the next. And, unlike the armies of psychometricians who design international assessments such as PISA, most development economists aren’t trained to create tests