Zachary Bleemer @zbleemer Twitter profile

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Zachary Bleemer

2 months

1/n Wondering how the enrollment effects of the SFFA affirmative action ban compare to past years' bans? Here's a new policy brief on how AA bans affects Black and Hispanic enrollment at selective universities, in the first year and years later.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

**New paper** Over the past 20 years (but not before!), Black and Hispanic college graduates have been steadily earning degrees in relatively lower-paying majors. The main culprit? An increasingly-common public university policy. A thread. #EconTwitter

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

#EconTwitter Looking for a memorable way to explain regression discontinuity designs to your students? Show them the causal wage return to majoring in economics! Today's lead article in AEJ Applied:

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

1 year

Everyone should listen to the end of Claudia Goldin's interview with Orley Ashenfelter, in which she discusses her experience as a woman in economics. The whole interview is as wonderful as everything @PikaGoldin does, but start at 32:45:

Claudia Goldin on her journey from the Bronx to Harvard–with groundbreaking research in between

The Work Goes On: An Oral History of Industrial Relations and Labor Economics with Princeton’s Orley Ashenfelter · Episode

open.spotify.com

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

1 year

Professional update! Super-excited to share that I will be joining @PrincetonEcon as an assistant professor of economics in the Industrial Relations Section this summer.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

A personal update: I've just accepted an assistant professorship at @YaleSOM Economics, to begin in 2022 after a postdoc at @OppInsights . I owe thanks to many, especially my advisors at @berkeleyecon , and am tremendously excited to begin this next chapter. More work coming soon!

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

My letter to the @TheAtlantic editor on important factual inaccuracies in @CaitlinPacific 's July 22 article about standardized tests and college admissions. For more detail, see

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

New data visualization: Ever wonder how lifetime wages and employment differ for selective college graduates with different demographics, majors, or even which courses they took? These longitudinal student dashboards provide answers. A #EconTwitter thread

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

New (job market) paper: Quasi-experimental and structural analysis of novel administrative data shows that broadening public university access for lower-testing students can promote economic mobility without efficiency losses. A thread. #EconTwitter

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Now published: Looking for a great way to explain regression discontinuity designs to undergrads? Show them the causal wage return to majoring in economics! A short thread. #EconTwitter

AEA Journals

@AEAjournals

4 years

Forthcoming in AEJ: Applied Economics: "Will Studying Economics Make You Rich? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of the Returns to College Major" by Zachary Bleemer and Aashish Mehta.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

1 year

--JOB POSTING-- I am hiring 3 new @econ_ra research specialists to join my @Princeton lab in Summer 2024 for an expected term of 2 years. They will participate in every stage of an applied micro research agenda focusing on economic mobility. Apply here:

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

New paper: Banning affirmative action causes Black and Hispanic youths to have lower overall and STEM degree attainment and to earn persistently lower wages into their mid-30s. A thread. Three-page summary ; Full paper #EconTwitter

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

2 years

I wrote a book! #EconTwitter 🧵 Our goal was to translate frontier economics research into a book for parents and students to help answer three questions: Should you go to college? Where should you go to college? What should you study in college?

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Thrilled to share that my research on the economic mobility ramifications of banning affirmative action is forthcoming at the @QJEHarvard .

QJE

@QJEHarvard

3 years

Recently accepted by #QJE , “Affirmative Action, Mismatch, and Economic Mobility after California’s Proposition 209,” by Zachary Bleemer ( @zbleemer ):

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

---JOB POSTING--- I am hiring one Tobin Center / Economics Pre-Doctoral Fellow to begin Summer 2022 for an expected term of two years. The fellow will participate in every stage of an applied micro research agenda focusing on economic mobility. Info here:

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

I'm going to write an occasional column for @washingtonpost that summarizes recent trends in the economics of education. My first column is about a suite of recent studies on the potential benefits of grade inflation.

Perspective | Grade inflation is just plain bad. Right? Maybe not.

A counterintuitive argument.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Bottom line: GPA-based major restriction policies exacerbate educational equity gaps between high- and low-SES families, with negative implications for efficiency, economic mobility, and the ethnicity wage gap. Here's the full paper: 16/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Many people like to think of college majors as a free CHOICE made by students. We did too! But it turns out that many public universities increasingly restrict access to popular majors using GPA restrictions and competitive applications. 5/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

---JOB POSTING--- I am hiring another Tobin Center / Economics Pre-Doctoral Fellow to begin July 2022 for an expected two year term. The fellow will work with me and the @OppInsights team on projects related to economic mobility and higher education. Info:

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

2 years

---JOB POSTING--- I am hiring one new Predoctoral Fellow to join my lab in Summer 2023 for an expected term of two years. The @econ_ra will participate in every stage of an applied micro research agenda focusing on economic mobility. Info here:

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

2 years

***New paper*** How do affirmative action's most common race-neutral alternatives comparatively reshape universities' enrollment of underrepresented minority (URM) and lower-income students? Here's a thread of new evidence from California. #EconTwitter

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

1 year

Here's a thread summarizing what happened after California banned affirmative action in 1998, including the long-run labor market effects of the ban. The peer-reviewed study is here:

Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

New paper: Banning affirmative action causes Black and Hispanic youths to have lower overall and STEM degree attainment and to earn persistently lower wages into their mid-30s. A thread. Three-page summary ; Full paper #EconTwitter

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Very glad that @Harvard and @Yale aren't money-grabbing with low-paying Masters degrees; it's a disgrace at many other private universities. Great reporting by @melissakorn @WSJ .

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

BONUS: Think that major restrictions may be in students' best interest, keeping them out of fields they're unprepared for? Our forthcoming paper in AEJ: Applied shows otherwise: RD evidence shows massive long-run costs to being booted out. 14/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

2 years

Very excited to officially join the amazing faculty at @YaleSOM and join the empirical research community at @Yale !

Yale School of Management

@YaleSOM

2 years

SOM welcomes nine new faculty members in organizational behavior, marketing, finance, and economics.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Important evidence from Texas that the economic value of enrolling at a more-selective university appears to be relatively larger for students with less pre-college academic opportunity.

AEA Journals

@AEAjournals

3 years

Forthcoming in AEJ: Applied Economics: "Winners and Losers? The Effect of Gaining and Losing Access to Selective Colleges on Education and Labor Market Outcomes" by Sandra E. Black, Jeffrey T. Denning, and Jesse Rothstein.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

There's good reason to expect a causal relationship: URM students earn lower average grades in first-year courses. Many were admitted for their academic promise despite having had more limited academic opportunity. They could catch up, but often don't get the chance. 8/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

I sent this information to both letters and corrections @TheAtlantic over 48 hours ago, but there has not yet been a public response. The article is here:

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

"New" paper with @NYFedResearch coauthors published in JUE six years after the first draft: What happens to students' education, debt, and future housing decisions when states raise public university tuition?

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Underrepresented minority (URM) college graduates have long earned lower-paying majors than their non-URM peers, but the gap has been growing for the past 20 years. Today, URM graduates earn degrees with lower average wages by almost 3%. 2/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

2 years

In which I explain to Stephen Dubner how amazing the University of California is, especially compared to all the others.

Freakonomics

@Freakonomics

2 years

America’s top colleges are facing record demand. So why don’t they increase supply?

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

In other words, GPA restrictions boot out students with lower academic preparation. Even targeted major restrictions actually sort students based on ABSOLUTE, not comparative, academic advantage. 11/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

We decompose that widening gap and find that 2/3 can be explained by increased stratification WITHIN universities. URM students' shift toward for-profits matters, but not as much as growing stratification at the schools where they were already enrolling. 3/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

For example, if you want to be an economics major at @UF or @UCBerkeley , you need to earn a B average in your introductory economics courses. If you don't, you'll have to study something else instead. 6/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

11 months

Junior applied microeconomists: Come hang out in Princeton for a few days in April and share your work! Submit a paper or extended abstract by December 20 to nlse_conference @princeton .edu @econ_conf

Princeton Economics

@PrincetonEcon

11 months

The Northeast Labor Symposium for Early Career Economists (NLS-E)—organized this year by @EmilioBorghesan , @dvergarad , & Garima Sharma—brings together researchers to discuss cutting edge work on labor markets. How to submit a paper:

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

See also @econsarahreber 's threads on some of these inaccuracies.

Sarah Reber

@econsarahreber

3 years

@mattyglesias This is wrong. In 2018, 168 students were admitted to Merced through the mechanism she is describing (it is not a pathway to any other campus). This covers a lot of issues with the STTF report. See my part for a description of how UC admissions works.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

A staggered difference-in-difference design around 29 major restrictions' implementation shows that GPA restrictions cause an immediate 3 percentage point (20 percent) decline in URM attainment. [Econometric note: Sun/Abraham estimates look the same] 10/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Majors with GPA restrictions tend to have fewer URM students, even compared to those same majors at other schools without restrictions. But do major restrictions have a differential CAUSAL effect on URM students? 7/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

@mattyglesias Don't mean to throw cold water on my own study, but people should read the second half, too. Big benefits for disadvantaged students and net efficiency gains, but very few kids were actually impacted (low-inc. enrollment increased <2%). Top percent policies may be small potatoes.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Stratification has been growing everywhere, but especially at public research universities. So we took a closer look at those schools. 4/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

The paper has a bunch of other findings as well, including major restrictions' effects on the gender gap in major premiums and their disaggregated effects on Asian, Black, and Hispanic students. 15/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

We then introduce a methodological innovation -- using student major INTENTIONS (predicted using pre-policy data) as the second difference in a diff-in-diff -- to show that restrictions differentially push URM students into lower-paying majors. 12/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

@JohnHolbein1 Top percent policies work because of high school stratification: almost 90% of participants came from below-average schools, where even top students are mostly lower-income and/or underrepresented minorities. ELC made lemonade out of K-12 inequality's lemons. Thanks for sharing!

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Thanks for reading! And my coauthor @ProfAMehta and I owe big thank-yous to @BerkeleyCSHE , @Spencer_Fdn , @OppInsights , and @UCHRInews for supporting this project! 17/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

1 year

A lot of people are focused on admission to elite universities, but access to lucrative college majors may be more relevant for socioeconomic mobility. Our new @BrookingsInst policy brief documents the disparate impacts of major restriction policies:

Restricted access to lucrative college majors harms underrepresented students most

www.brookings.edu

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

@JohnHolbein1 Here's a thread that runs through the paper's main findings:

Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

New (job market) paper: Quasi-experimental and structural analysis of novel administrative data shows that broadening public university access for lower-testing students can promote economic mobility without efficiency losses. A thread. #EconTwitter

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

In sum, the paper shows that university admissions policies that target high-GPA low-SAT applicants can simultaneously promote economic mobility (through broader university access) and increase universities' economic value-added.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

We study the effects of major restrictions by constructing a new detailed database that covers the 900,000 students who enrolled at four public research universities between 1975 and 2018. 9/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Finally, we use our estimates to simulate how much of the URM major premium gap can be explained just by new restrictions. It does a good job until recent years, when we think older restrictions' tightening (like going from 3.0 to 3.3) played a bigger role. 13/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

2 years

Clarifying new theoretical work on potential efficiency limits of meritocracy when "merit" is judged using observable measures of prior performance like SAT or grades.

AEA Journals

@AEAjournals

2 years

Forthcoming in the JEL: "Meritocracy and Representation" by Rajiv Sethi and Rohini Somanathan.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Our main finding is simple: access to the economics major (first stage) substantially increases students' wages in their mid-20s (reduced form).

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Link all of those introductory economics students to their mid-20s annual wages, and voilà: students with a 2.8 economics GPA have $8,000 higher average wages. That implies that majoring in economics caused those students to earn $22,000 more in their mid-20s.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Great thread on an interesting study of how policymakers react to new research findings. Key finding that suggests we have work to do: "Policymakers don’t have a preference between observational studies and [quasi-]experimental studies."

Nozomi Nakajima

@nozominaka

3 years

New working paper: “Evidence-Based Decisions and Education Policymakers” In a series of experiments, I study how education policymakers in the U.S. use research evidence to inform their decisions. A summary 🧵 [1/N]

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

@Steve_Sailer I suggest reading the thread. It turns out that allowing lower-GPA students (by which I mean B/B- students, not failing students) to study lucrative quantitative majors leads them to high-wage jobs, whereas booting them to less-lucrative majors doesn't.

Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

BONUS: Think that major restrictions may be in students' best interest, keeping them out of fields they're unprepared for? Our forthcoming paper in AEJ: Applied shows otherwise: RD evidence shows massive long-run costs to being booted out. 14/n

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

1 year

I've had a wonderful year at @YaleSOM , and am especially grateful to @KerwinKCharles and Seth Zimmerman, along with the whole economics family at SOM and in @YaleEconomics , for the opportunity to spend time in an amazing group.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

This study complements my work on affirmative action and a recent paper on Texas Top Ten by @Econ_Sandy , @JeffDenning , and @rothstein_jesse : quasi-experimental studies of the medium-run effects of access-oriented U.S. admission policies evince BIG economic mobility potential.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Why do UCSC economics majors earn more? Educational outcomes like grades and completion don't explain it. But econ majors become much more likely to WANT to go into business/finance careers, and then they're more likely to do so. Industry explains about half of the wage effect.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

More than 10% of economics majors from @UCBerkeley have earnings above $600,000 by their late 40s. ( @berkeleyecon )

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

First, I investigate student outcomes. Despite ELC participants' disadvantages, more-selective enrollment caused large increases in their degree attainment and earnings (ages 25-27), with annual wages rising by about $20,000 relative to enrolling at less-selective colleges.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Many more results in the paper. In sum, this study employs a quasi-experimental research design and novel administrative data to provide the first causal evidence that banning affirmative action substantively exacerbates socioeconomic inequities. 13/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

In 2008-2012, UC Santa Cruz limited access to its economics major to students who earned at least a 2.8 GPA in their first two economics courses. Compliance was imperfect, but having a 2.8 GPA made students much more likely to declare the economics major.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Lots more to play with (and learn)! The website also has several longitudinal university-related datasets available to researchers. Enjoy!

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

P.S. The wage return to studying economics is Equal Opportunity! Majors earn $22,000 more whether they're male or female, and underrepresented minority students earn the same return as their non-URM peers. And that's just in their mid-20s; if anything, the return grows with age.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

The findings also present a new challenge to using the SAT. Many recent books argue that tests are unfair and/or wasteful. This study suggests that tests are inefficient; they do not identify the students who would most benefit from selective universities. @DSMarkovits @paultough

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

2 years

Have questions about the short- and long-run effects of race-based affirmative action in college admissions? My study of California's 1998 affirmative action ban probably answers many of them. Feel free to ask further questions as replies below!

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

At @UCRiverside and other schools, STEM students who took more #Humanities courses – and who took courses in a wider variety of departments – tended to have lower wages in their first job but higher lifetime wages.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

2 years

The book highlights research from LOTS of awesome economists! Including @JoshGoodman_BU @SarahCohodes @phil_wellesley @edwinleuven @OppInsights @dynarski @turnersarahe @chingos @jonisaacsmith @GeorgetownCEW and more, including many not on Twitter (looking at you, Basit Zafar).

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Since the 1960s, selective public universities have admitted students mostly using the SAT and other measures of academic preparedness, on the theory that highly prepared students can best take advantage of their rigorous coursework. But is that true? Evidence is non-existent.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

These findings are inconsistent with the university "Mismatch Hypothesis". A series of online appendices replicate and discuss the limitations of the few prior studies suggesting that Prop 209 harmed URM youths, ultimately reconciling their analysis with my baseline findings. 12/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

In fact, these returns are substantially larger than the AVERAGE value-added of UC enrollment, as estimated using a fixed-effect value-added model across universities à la @OppInsights .

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

1 year

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. First interviews will be scheduled at the beginning of October. International applicants are welcome!

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Thanks for reading; I hope that you (and your students!!) find this helpful! Here's an ungated version of the forthcoming paper:

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Complementary regression discontinuity and institutional value-added analyses suggest that affirmative action's net wage benefits for URM applicants substantially exceed its (potentially small) net costs for on-the-margin white and Asian applicants. 11/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Here's a thread summarizing the paper's other findings. Shout-out to @OppInsights , David Card, @steph_r_owen , and others who have already used these graphs in the classroom (or on exams!!).

Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

In 2008-2012, UC Santa Cruz limited access to its economics major to students who earned at least a 2.8 GPA in their first two economics courses. Compliance was imperfect, but having a 2.8 GPA made students much more likely to declare the economics major.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Enrolling at less-selective UC campuses did not improve URM UC students' performance or persistence in STEM course sequences. URM students' relatively lower STEM grades are explained by limited high school opportunities and preparedness, not affirmative action. 10/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Prop 209 also deterred thousands of qualified URM students from applying to any UC campus, likely exacerbating these estimated effects. (However, sensitivity analyses show that substantial selection bias is very unlikely after conditioning on applicants' academic preparedness) 9/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Turns out that you'd almost hit the nail on the head! Whether you use UCSC, state, or national wage averages, you'd slightly UNDERshoot the estimated return to majoring in economics. This appears to be because lower-GPA students have slightly above-average returns to the major.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

This study answers three questions. First, which students are targeted by affirmative action, and to what degree does affirmative action impact where those students go to college? 1/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Thanks to @BerkeleyCSHE and @NAEduc for supporting this research! And thanks to @kevincarey1 for his great coverage in @UpshotNYT : . Once again, policy brief here: and full paper here: . 14/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

New data are key to this study. I analyze a newly-constructed highly-detailed longitudinal database linking all 1994-2002 University of California applicants to their college enrollment, course performance, major choice, degree attainment, and wages into their mid-30s. 5/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Takeaway from a great thread: At a small elite private university with pervasive elite social clubs (Harvard), "exposure to high-status peers helps students achieve social success in college, but the overall effects are driven entirely by large gains for private feeder students."

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Highlighting research by, among others, @JeffDenning @eeide @KJMumford @PikaGoldin @kfbutcher @SethGershenson @larsjkirkeboen @edwinleuven (and @paultough ).

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

And here's some great coverage from @kevincarey1 at @UpshotNYT last Fall!

A Detailed Look at the Downside of California’s Ban on Affirmative Action (Published 2020)

Ending racial preferences in a state university system harmed Black and Hispanic students while doing little to lift whites and Asian-Americans, a study asserts.

www.nytimes.com

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Since the 1960s, the share of Humanities courses taught at UC has steadily fallen by half, even at @UCSC . #STEM fields have swiftly expanded in recent years.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Affirmative action provided very large admissions advantages to UC's 10,000 annual underrepresented minority (URM) freshman applicants. Ending affirmative action caused them to cascade into lower-quality universities. URM enrollment at Berkeley/UCLA and across UC plummeted. 6/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

2 years

But second, my and others' work has shown that access-oriented admissions policies tend to be efficiency-enhancing. Lower-testing students tend to get more out of selective universities than their higher-testing peers.

Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

New (job market) paper: Quasi-experimental and structural analysis of novel administrative data shows that broadening public university access for lower-testing students can promote economic mobility without efficiency losses. A thread. #EconTwitter

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

@Noah_McKBraun Interesting question. Here's the closest thing we have: before restrictions, URM students' grades in upper-div courses are relatively worse than non-URM students'. After the restriction, the gap closes. So restrictions do seem to filter out URM students who would get lower grades

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

1 year

@m_urquiola @RDMetcalfe @mikekofoed @Econ_4_Everyone Three points: (1) Corroborating evidence that HS econ isn't doing much good: (2) Econ BA is super-valuable, but I doubt that's true for PhD: (3) Access to econ BAs is low & falling for low-SES students:

Financial Education and the Debt Behavior of the Young

Abstract. Young Americans are heavily reliant on debt and have clear financial literacy shortcomings. In this paper, we study the effects of exposure to fi

academic.oup.com

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Second, what are the short- and long-run effects of enrolling at a more-selective university because of affirmative action? 2/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Third, how are the net benefits and costs of affirmative action distributed across Asian, Black, Hispanic, and white university applicants? 3/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

2 years

Under #affirmativeaction , Black and Hispanic students were twice as likely to be admitted to Berkeley/UCLA as white and Asian students with similar SATs and grades. That advantage fell to 40% in 1998, and the policies implemented since then haven't moved the needle so much.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

"The U.S. doesn’t have a job quantity problem; instead, it has a job quality problem." @davidautor

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

Thanks to @BerkeleyCSHE and @NAEduc for supporting this research, to @MD4SG for its 'Best Paper Award' earlier this year, and to you for reading! Once again, you can read the full paper here:

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Interesting thread on universities' incentives and the costs of limiting access to lucrative college majors.

Preston Cooper

@PrestonCooper93

3 years

My latest in @Forbes : A new study shows that colleges are restricting enrollment in five of the highest-paying majors. Since the value of college depends on your major, this is deeply concerning. Quick 🧵:

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Computer science is one of the highest-wage majors, but also the major with the highest mid-career job turnover rate. At @UCIrvine , for example, mid-career #CompSci majors are 60 percent more likely to have switched jobs in the past 5 years than the average grad.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

I answer these questions by studying the ramifications of Proposition 209, which banned race-based affirmative action at California public universities in 1998. I use a difference-in-difference research design to compare university applicant outcomes before and after Prop 209. 4/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

4 years

URM UC applicants' undergraduate and graduate degree attainment – from UC or any other college or university – declined overall and in STEM fields, especially among applicants with lower "Academic Indices" (AI), a weighted average of SAT scores and high school grades. 7/

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

@Steve_Sailer @drkarenhj 👍 Not my first-choice solution, but I'll take it! Purdue does this, and there are many others; e.g. "data science" for comp sci and "environmental econ" for econ at Bkly. I have some unpublished analysis showing these work for human capital: all the wage gain without the signal.

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

3 years

Application materials go to bleemer.research.lab @gmail .com. The Fellow will be part of the Tobin Center fellows program at Yale University, which has a great pre-doc community and an excellent placement record: @econ_ra

Apply

Thank you for your interest in our program. At this time, we welcome applications for our 2024-25 cohort. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until positions have been filled.

tobin.yale.edu

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Zachary Bleemer

@zbleemer

2 years

The new study starts by taking a look at admission and enrollment at the University of California since the 1990s. While URM enrollment seems to has "recovered" at Berkeley and UCLA since AA was banned, the recovery can be wholly explained by demographic trends in California.

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