Education policy in the United States, while primarily the responsibility of the state governments, involves complicated decision making at the local, state, and federal levels. Federal involvement dramatically increased under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). But, reflecting resistance to various parts of this law, the involvement of federal policy making was substantially reduced when Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015. This change in policy allows estimation of the impact of altered federalism. By looking at how states reacted to their enhanced decision-making role, we see a retreat from the use of output-based policy toward teachers, and this retreat was associated with significantly lower student achievement growth. The snapshot of federalism impacts here is a lower bound on the effects as more states will very likely react to the flexibility of ESSA and as more school districts change their teacher force.

We evaluate the Education Maintenance Allowance, a large conditional cash transfer that paid teenagers from lower-income families in England to remain in full-time education after age 16. Leveraging variation from the staggered roll-out and using linked administrative data, we find no improvement in labor market outcomes by age 31. If anything, the policy slightly reduced cumulative earnings and increased benefit receipt, driven by delayed labor market entry among higher-attaining students and weaker labor force attachment among lower-attaining students who stayed longer in education without gaining qualifications. However, it did reduce crime among lower-attaining students, suggesting some social benefits, though these were likely outweighed by the program’s considerable costs.

This paper examines whether a nationwide policy mandating chess instruction in Armenian elementary schools since 2011 enhances students’ cognitive skills and academic performance. Using Triple Differences identification strategy and student-level data from the Kangaroo International Math Competition (2009–2019), I compare cohorts exposed to early chess training with those who were not. My findings reveal a meaningful and statistically significant positive effect on math test scores, estimated at 1.4 points (a 4% improvement relative to the median). Students from rural areas benefit twice as much from chess instruction, whereas students from public schools do not significantly benefit relative to private schools. The results align with mixed evidence on the far-transfer benefits of cognitively demanding activities. These findings provide practical insights for policymakers considering the inclusion of chess in school curricula, in terms of its cognitive impact and cost-effectiveness.

This paper considers the role universities play in determining their enrollment when faced with government regulated domestic tuition. Our theoretical framework posits that domestic student enrollment increase and international student enrollment decrease or remain unchanged when domestic tuition increases. Using 30 years of data, we find higher tuition increases domestic enrollment, mediated by an expectation that students may respond negatively to increased tuition. Universities shift enrollment toward higher-revenue fields. The results for international student enrollment is mixed, depending on the research intensity of the university.