Job Market Paper

The effects of Import Shock on College Enrollment

Abstract: This paper examines the effect of international trade on college enrollment from 1990 to 2014 in the US, when increase of import competition from China becomes more and more pronounced. From conceptual analysis, more high school graduates should be pushed into pursuing higher education for two reasons: the decrease in share of manufacturing workers among the working-age population, and the decrease of average personal income. However, empirical results suggest that there is little to no educational responses to import competition, even for commuting zones that historically specialized in manufacturing or experienced larger import shocks. However, I do find that commuting zones with less manufacturing labor force witness an increase of enrollment in private institutions. At the same time, the commuting zones with the least amount of income see an increase of enrollment in public 2-year institutions. Two channels could explain this null effect: increase in financial constraints, and spillover effect to other industries.

Working papers

Effects of Vocational Education and Training and College Degree on Migration Decisions

Abstract: College graduates are more likely to migrate compared to non-college graduates, but little literature has examined whether the migration behavior of vocational education and training recipients differ from those without VET. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I find that the short-run association of VET on migration is 10.2 percentage points, compared to 6.89 percentage points for similar-aged college graduates. VET increases lifetime migration times by 24% in the long run. The results from an event study shows that the effect of VET and college degree on migration is concentrated one wave after the individual receives the degree or certificate and gradually diminishes afterwards, consistent with the interpretation that education causes migration.

The Effects of Vocational Education Millages on Career and Technical Education in Michigan (with Matthew Guzman)

Abstract: Due to declining post-secondary enrollment and skepticism regarding the value of higher education, students and policy makers have increasingly turned to career and technical education (CTE) courses for workforce development. CTE courses offer alternative education tracks to prepare students for in-demand jobs that may not require a four-year college degree. While CTE can be funded via state and federal sources, there is substantial variation in Michigan regarding how CTE is funded at the local level. Many school districts must fund CTE courses using their general education funds, but some integrated school districts (ISDs) have adopted dedicated property taxes to support CTE. These local property taxes or millages provide dedicated funding streams for CTE, and this removes the burden of CTE spending from school districts’ general funds. Furthermore, this allows ISDs to provide separate, centralized CTE programs for students.

To understand how increased funding affects CTE enrollment, we use data on vocational education millages and administrative education data in each ISD between the 2007-2008 school year and the 2021-2022 school year. As revenue from CTE millages can only be spent on CTE-specific line items, expenditures on CTE increase dramatically after the adoption of a millage. Using staggered difference-in-difference models with millage adoption as the treatment, we find suggestive evidence that the adoption of dedicated millages increases the total number of CTE programs offered, the number of students enrolled in CTE, and the number of CTE teachers employed within the first three years after implementation.