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This study seeks to empirically ground the debate over mathematics and science teacher shortages and evaluate the extent to which there is, or is not, sufficient supply of teachers in these fields. The authors' analyses of nationally representative data from multiple sources show that math and science are the fields most difficult to staff, but the factors behind these problems are complex. There are multiple sources of new teachers; those with education degrees are a minor source compared to those with degrees in math and science and the reserve pool. Over the past two decades, graduation requirements, student course taking, and teacher retirements have all increased for math and science, yet the new supply has more than kept pace. However, when preretirement teacher attrition is factored in, there is a much tighter balance between supply and demand. Unlike fields such as English, for math and science, there is not a large cushion of new supply relative to losses—resulting in staffing problems in schools with higher turnover

Using the 2000/01 Baccalaureate & Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:00/01), this paper employs multilevel modeling to test a conceptual model of graduate school choice that draws significantly from human capital theory while incorporating the salient concepts of cultural and social capital. The model posits that the graduate school choice process is comprised of three nested phases. First, an individual develops an aspiration for graduate-level education; next, the student submits applications to graduate schools, and thirdly, the student enrolls in a graduate program. Dependent students who obtained high undergraduate grade point averages majored in the humanities, social or behavioral sciences, mathematics, or life and physical sciences, and attended a master’s or doctoral institution were most likely to aspire to, apply for, and enroll in graduate school. This study also found that, when controlling for all other variables in the models, Hispanic students are more likely to aspire to and apply for graduate school, and African-American students are more likely to aspire to, apply for, and enroll in graduate school than white students. A key variable of interest, undergraduate indebtedness, does not affect graduate school choice when accounting for all other variables in the model.

Evidence shows that parental financial investments increase college attendance, but we know little about how these investments shape postsecondary achievement. Two theoretical frameworks suggest diametric conclusions. Some studies operate from a more-is-more perspective in which children use calculated parental allocations to make academic progress. In contrast, a more-is-less perspective, rooted in a different model of rational behavior, suggests that parental investments create a disincentive for student achievement. I adjudicate between these frameworks, using data from nationally representative postsecondary datasets to determine what effect financial parental investments have on student GPA and degree completion. The findings suggest seemingly contradictory processes. Parental aid decreases student GPA, but it increases the odds of graduating—net of explanatory variables and accounting for alternative funding. Rather than strategically using resources in accordance with parental goals, or maximizing on their ability to avoid academic work, students are satisficing: they meet the criteria for adequacy on multiple fronts, rather than optimizing their chances for a particular outcome. As a result, students with parental funding often perform well enough to stay in school but dial down their academic efforts. I conclude by highlighting the importance of life stage and institutional context for parental investment.

This article examines debt burden among college graduates and contributes to previous research by incorporating institutional and state characteristics. Utilizing a combination of national datasets and zero-one inflated beta regression, we find several major themes. First, family income and college experiences are strongly associated with the probability of zero debt burden as well as the level of debt burden. Second, graduates from private institutions have a higher level of debt burden than graduates from a public institution. Lastly, state funding of merit-based aid programs play a role in reducing students' debt burden, but the effect disappears when accounting for the \"Georgia effect.\" Conclusions and suggestions are made about the roles institutions and government can play in reducing debt burden among college graduates.

Although sociologists have found direct links between parents' education and the high school and college educational attainments of their offspring, researchers have been surprised to find no parental effects on educational enrollments beyond college. Postgraduate matriculation appears to result from academic success in college, divorced from parents' educational capital. Using new data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study, the authors reexamine this issue and extend the literature by disaggregating graduate programs by type. They find that parents' education has no effect on their children's entry into MBA programs and only a small influence on entry into master's programs; however, there is a strong effect of parents' education on entry into first-professional and doctoral programs. The role of parental education is largely indirect, working primarily through the characteristics of a student's undergraduate institution, academic performance, educational expectations, and career values. In addition, college performance maintains a strong, independent effect on enrollment in graduate school.

This study investigates the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations from the aspect of earning differentials. Using a national data source that tracked college graduates' work experiences over a ten-year time frame post-bachelor's degree, this study examines longitudinally the gender-based earning gaps of college graduates in STEM fields, and compares the earning differentials between STEM and non-STEM occupations. The findings indicate a significant departure between the earning profiles of men and women within the first ten years of employment. Further, findings indicate that women in STEM occupations experienced multiple earning penalties concurrent with their growing family obligations. To increase the representation of women in STEM fields, interventions are called for to encourage a family-friendly workplace that is open to and supportive of women managing a home and career. Also, incentives are needed to support women's continuation to graduate education as a means to increase their human capital and to level their earning power.

Using data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:93/03) of College Graduates, we use structural equation modeling to model the relationships between college major, values held in college, collegiate community service participation, and the post-college political participation of college graduates by public versus private institutions. We use Holland's Theory of person-environment fit as lens to understand differences in political participation across majors and institutional contexts. Over a 10-year period immediately after receiving the baccalaureate, we find that choice of major and individual values are differentially associated with post-college political participation for private institution graduates when compared to the counterparts at public institutions. We relate our findings to extant literature that highlights the differences in institutional characteristics between public and private colleges and socialization patterns of under-graduates that may inform differences in post-college political participation. Implications for future research are also offered.

In the authors' 2011 JEE article, \"Estimating Gender Wage Gaps,\" they described an interesting class project that allowed students to estimate the current gender earnings gap for recent college graduates using data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Unfortunately, since 2012, NACE no longer reports starting salaries for college graduates broken down by gender. In this note, the authors describe several alternative data options that instructors can use for the class project using the simulation procedure that was described in the earlier article.

The quality of the teacher workforce in the United States is of considerable concern to education stakeholders and policymakers. Numerous studies show that student academic success depends in no small part on access to high-quality teachers. Many pundits point to the fact that in the United States, teachers tend not to be drawn from the top of the academic performance distribution, as is the case in countries with higher student achievement, such as Finland, Korea, and Singapore. The evidence on the importance of teacher academic proficiency generally suggests that effectiveness in raising student test scores is associated with strong cognitive skills as measured by SAT or licensure test scores, or the competitiveness of the college from which teachers graduate. Over the past 20 years, there has been a strong policy push toward getting smarter people into the teacher workforce. Enacted in 2001, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), for instance, emphasized academic competence by requiring that prospective teachers either graduate with a major in the subject they are teaching, have credits equivalent to a major, or pass a qualifying test showing competence in the subject. Newly created alternative pathways to certification have sought to bring more academically accomplished individuals into the profession. Absent persuasive evidence on the impact of efforts to raise the bar, some people have speculated that the rise of test-based accountability associated with NCLB and the ongoing push to establish more-rigorous teacher evaluation systems have made teaching less attractive and thereby contributed to further decline in the quality of the teaching corps. So how has the academic caliber of new teachers changed over the last two decades? Has the policy emphasis on teacher quality led more academically talented people into the teacher workforce, or have accountability reforms driven talent away? In this article the authors use a variety of datasets to analyze trends in the academic proficiency of individuals at various points in the teacher pipeline over the last two decades. The findings are generally encouraging, although they come with caveats and an acknowledgment that there is room for improvement when it comes to drawing more talent into teaching. Focusing on the start of the teacher pipeline, i.e., on those who report applying for a teaching job or teachers who begin classroom positions in the year immediately after receiving an undergraduate degree, the authors find that teacher applicants and new teachers in recent years have significantly higher SAT scores than their counterparts in the mid-1990s. Contrary to earlier cohorts of college graduates from the mid-1990s and early 2000s, graduates entering the teaching profession in the 2008-09 school year had average SAT scores that slightly exceeded average scores of their peers entering other occupations. What is less clear is whether this improvement reflects a temporary response to the economic downturn or a more permanent shift.

This paper quantifies the extent to which unified teacher pay scales and differential alternatives produce opportunity costs that are asymmetric in math and verbal skills. Data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond 1997 and 2003 follow-ups are used to estimate a fully parametric, selection-corrected wage equation for nonteachers, which is then used to predict the wages that teachers would have received in a nonteaching career. The difference between actual teacher salaries and this prediction can be considered the opportunity cost of teaching. Moving up one standard deviation in math SAT score increases the opportunity cost of teaching by $1,500 to $2,000 four years after college, rising to $3,000 to $3,800 ten years after college. Moving up one standard deviation in verbal SAT score increases the opportunity cost by $300 four years after college, and by $1,300 ten years after college. The teacher salary gap is also decomposed into policy versus teacher-characteristic components.