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Students drop out of school for a variety of reasons, yet are "pushed out" when they exhibit traits that are deemed undesirable to school officials, such as misbehavior and academic failure. While much of the previous research on pushouts views the phenomenon as a discrete occurrence often attributed to either misbehavior or academic failure, we recognize the underlying relationships between punishment and achievement, and therefore conceptualize pushing out as a process of both disciplinary involvement and academic exclusion over time. Using structural equation modeling (SEM) with a nationally representative longitudinal study of high school students (HSLS-09), we find that significant relationships among punishment and math achievement (including math attitudes, ability, and course-taking) have the effect of pushing students out of high school over time. We note the importance of race and ethnicity within these relationships and close with a discussion of policy implications.

While previous research has explored the entrance and persistence of underrepresented groups in traditional STEM preparation programs, previous research has not explored these trends in alternative STEM preparation programs, such as coding bootcamps, nor the degree to which more equity-focused admissions policies can alter these trends within these types of programs. We fill this gap by examining entrance and persistence patterns across six cohorts of a large coding and apprenticeship program-LaunchCode (N = 4,868). We then leverage a natural experiment in which LaunchCode adopted more equity-focused admissions policies. We focus on three unique phases of LaunchCode's program: admissions, course completion, and employment connection through an accompanying apprenticeship program. We conduct five sets of logistic regression models across both individual and combined program phases with separate interaction terms for admissions policy change and race, gender, and entrance exam test scores. Overall, when we combine admission and course completion phases, we find that Black individuals and individuals with lower entrance exam test scores are no longer at a significant disadvantage after the change in admissions policy, while Hispanic individuals and females appear to have a relative advantage. However, when focusing solely on those who were admitted, we observed increased completion rates only among individuals with lower entrance exam test scores. Moreover, we did not observe any instances of increased persistence for these groups in the models that included the apprenticeship phase. These findings demonstrate the promise of equity-focused admissions policies for increasing access to alternative STEM education programs for women and persons of color, as well as the limitations of these policies for increasing persistence for women and persons of color in STEM.

In March 2021, the American Rescue Plan substantially increased the maximum per-child child tax credit (CTC). However, research has yet to explore educational investments associated with the CTC. Thus, the authors leverage a probability-based panel survey of CTC-eligible families across 49 states to examine how parents' investments in tutoring and college savings relate to the degree to which parents believe that their children will have better lives than they did. Through mediation models, the authors find that even though families that used the CTC for tutoring and college savings perceived an impact, intentions were related only to increased optimism through actions for college savings. Moreover, through their moderation models, the authors find that the direct effects of using the CTC for college savings on increased optimism were significant only for lower income families and that converting savings plans into actions was substantially more common among families with previous savings experiences.

As policymakers grapple with whether or not to forgive student debt, for who, and how much, it is important to explore how student debt forgiveness would relate to intended household decisions and behaviors. We conducted a survey experiment that asked participants with student debt to imagine a scenario in which the federal government forgave a certain amount of student debt. We then had these participants report on how this would affect their decisions and behaviors. A total of 1,053 participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that featured different levels of student debt forgiveness. Our results indicate that student debt is strongly influencing intended decisions and behaviors that can have large implications for household economic stability (e.g., emergency savings) and social mobility (e.g., saving for a down payment on a home). These results also demonstrate that the amount of student debt forgiveness matters.

Abstract: We examined grit in the context of a wealth-building situation: tax refund savings. Specifically, we leveraged a novel dataset combining longitudinal survey data with administrative tax data for a sample of 6,904 low- and moderate-income (LMI) tax filers in the United States. After statistically balancing individuals on grit across a range of important characteristics with propensity score weighting, we found that grit was associated with better financial behaviors. Additionally, the influence of grit on savings-related behaviors did not vary across the experience of financial stressors. Lastly, we found that individuals exhibiting higher levels of grit prioritized education spending over gifts, confirming the notion that people exhibiting higher levels of grit are determined and passionate as they pursue their long-term goals.

Despite the array of public programs offered to help households mitigate the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, many still needed to rely on savings, credit, or other assets to make ends meet. This reality may exacerbate existing social and economic inequities because racial and ethnic minorities often have lower access to assets and credit than white households. We use longitudinal national survey data to explore the extent to which different racial and ethnic groups experienced housing hardships during the pandemic, the role of liquid assets in mediating housing hardship, and whether job/income loss moderated the relationship among race/ethnicity, liquid assets, and housing hardship. We find that liquid assets significantly mediated the relationship between race/ethnicity and housing hardships and that the effect was stronger for those who lost jobs or incomes as a result of COVID-19.