College and Career Readiness

This dissertation consists of three quantitative studies analyzing educational policies and programs that help to improve college readiness, college success, as well as the transition from college to the labor market. The first chapter studies the impact of raising the bar for high school math on college readiness and success. The chapter examines the causal effects of recent state-level reforms increasing the high school graduation math requirement on high school graduation and college outcomes. Using nationally-representative survey data, the study exploits variation in the reform timing across states in a staggered difference-in-difference framework. Findings indicate that raising the high school graduation requirement in math coursework is a potentially effective policy tool to prepare students better for college, but highlight racial disparities in the effectiveness of the math reforms. The second chapter discusses experiential learning through work-based courses at 2-year and 4-year colleges. Experiential learning is a critical component for a smooth transition from higher education to the workforce. In this chapter, I apply an innovative text mining technique to identify and