DO REGIONAL UNIVERSITIES AFFECT K-12 EDUCATION IN THEIR COMMUNITIES?

What is the impact of universities on their local communities? While this is a highly policy-relevant question, evidence of causal effects is limited. This proposal focuses on the impact of regional universities on local K-12 education. Professor Weinstein will focus on whether proximity to a regional university reduces hiring difficulties for local schools and whether this proximity affects the types of teachers hired. Many regional universities started as teacher training schools in the 1800s and early 1900s, and they continue to educate many of the new graduates with an education degree. As a result, they may impact teacher hiring at local K-12 schools if graduates want to remain locally after graduation, or if graduates have better information about local jobs. Understanding the impact of regional universities on local teacher hiring is important for identifying areas at greater risk of teacher shortages and appropriate policy responses. This research also helps identify universities’ impact on their communities, often discussed in state funding considerations. Weinstein’s research team isolates the causal impact of universities by comparing counties that, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, were assigned normal schools to train teachers versus counties that were assigned insane asylums by their state governments. Their forthcoming work in the Review of Economics and Statistics shows that counties assigned insane asylums are a strong counterfactual for what would have happened in normal school counties if the county had instead received a different state institution. To study whether regional universities decrease difficulties in teacher hiring at local schools, Weinstein will use individual- and county-level data on teachers’ employment, salaries, academic achievement and preparation, and demographics. Data sources will include restricted-access survey data from the US Department of Education, the US Department of Education database on all public schools, and the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.