Research

Works in Progress

Higher Education Investment and the Rise of College Attainment

The early 20th century saw a dramatic expansion in higher education investment and college attainment. The transformation in attainment was uneven across regions: the West experienced the strongest gains, whereas gains in the Northeast, Midwest, and South were more modest. What drove this transformation in American human capital, and why did it vary so sharply across space? This paper uses difference-in-differences empirical designs, linked decennial census data, and a newly created panel of the universe of U.S. colleges spanning 1890 to 1940, to isolate the effect of higher education investment on educational attainment. We estimate the causal impact of two types of investments made during this period on attainment: new junior college openings, which reduce the distance cost of attendance, and shocks to college funding from state and philanthropic sources, which increase the quality of existing institutions. Junior college openings increase local college attainment by 10 percent; our analysis of the effects of funding shocks is ongoing. We then develop a model of education choice in which individuals respond to both college costs and labor market returns. We will use the model to conduct counterfactual experiments that redistribute higher education investment across states.

Brain Drain Across the US (with Fabian Eckert and Gaurav Khanna)

College investments in one region can benefit other regions if graduates migrate. We document a key fact about college attainment and migration. Before 1980, states which provided most college education also saw net outflows of educated graduates. After 1980, this trend reverses. We decompose the reversal into two key drivers. First, historically low-attainment states particularly in the South dramatically expanded college production. Second, regions with high-skilled workers saw increases in returns to skill and subsequently increases in housing costs. Thus, migration increasingly drew new graduates away from regions with growing college supply and towards established high-skill labor markets, while repelling low-skill workers. We aim to quantify the contribution of this reversal in widening geographic inequality.

Published Articles

Not Cashing In on Cashing Out: An Analysis of Low Cash-Out Refinance Rates (with Mallick Hossain and Igor Livshits)

Real Estate Economics, 2026