Departments and Research Centers

Education Policy Initiative

The Education Policy Initiative (EPI) is a program within the Ford School that brings together nationally-recognized education policy scholars focused on the generation and dissemination of policy-relevant education research.

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In the Media

Dynarski argues "Colleges are fueling the pandemic in a classic market failure"

Oct 8, 2020 Colleges Are Fueling the Pandemic in a Classic Market Failure

Financial pressures explain why many campuses have brought students back. But Ford School economist Susan Dynarski and Sarah Cohodes of Columbia University Teachers College say that there is a textbook solution: government...

News

Applications for financial aid lagging among Michigan low-income students

Aug 9, 2020

The economic hardship for low-income families caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may have another casualty: high school seniors accessing financial aid to attend college. Applications for federal and state financial aid for college are a leading...

News

Why the move to online instruction won’t reduce college costs

Aug 7, 2020

In an essay for the Chalkboard blog at the Brookings Institution, Kevin Stange, associate professor of public policy at the Ford School, reports on analysis of the move to online teaching at colleges and universities across the U.S. He and his...

News

Dynarski: “The U.S. is reopening many of the wrong schools”

Aug 4, 2020

Ford School professor Sue Dynarski writes in a column for The New York Times that with coronavirus cases spiking in dozens of states, the prospect of anything resembling a normal school year is fading fast. Schools can’t safely reopen if infections...

News

Ford School expands education policy capabilities with the addition of Christina Weiland to faculty

Jul 20, 2020

Christina Weiland, associate professor in the School of Education, is joining the Ford School with a faculty appointment by courtesy. She expands and deepens the Ford School of Public Policy’s strength in education policy. She co-leads the...

News

IES Grant Supports Doctoral Student Training in Causal Inference in Education Policy Research

Jul 10, 2020

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in the U.S. Department of Education has renewed a 5-year, $4.6 million grant to support the University of Michigan's Education Policy Initiative Training Program in Causal Inference in Education Policy...

Stange highlights the value of in-person higher education in light of the Coronavirus crisis

May 29, 2020

An article in Marketwatch on May 29 posits, “Coronavirus raises new questions about the value of higher education,” and looks at how students are changing their plans in light of an increase in online course offerings at universities. In an...

State & Hill

Faculty Findings - Spring 2020

May 22, 2020

Robin Jacob on closing early childhood achievement gaps The first five years of a child’s life are considered the most critical for development. But for too many children from low-income households, learning opportunities...

News

Dynarski addresses remote learning inequities

May 20, 2020

“The pandemic has revealed enormous inequalities in homes, in schools, in families. So the technological challenges are large, and they are very much connected to a family's financial resources,” according to Ford School professor Susan Dynarski,...

News

Making up for lost time for millions of children, U.S. education needs a major rescue effort

May 8, 2020

For most students, the school year ended in March, according to a New York Times commentary by Ford School professor Susan Dynarski. She outlines both the education lost for American students from school closures and what will need to be done to...

The economic downturn may lead to a change in college major choices

May 5, 2020

Research has shown that in an economic downturn, students often shift to studying more career-oriented subjects like health sciences or engineering. The 2008 recession confirmed this trend: after remaining stable for the previous decade, from 2008...

Online learning out of reach for millions of students

May 1, 2020

UNESCO, the United Nations’ education agency, released data on April 21 revealing that half of all children currently out of school due to stay-at-home orders do not have access to a computer, and forty percent do not have access to the internet....

News

Susan Dynarski explains who struggles most with student debt

Jul 11, 2019

News coverage about student debt is piling up, just like the student debt itself. But the people who are struggling the most with student debt aren’t the ones you may expect, explains Susan Dynarski, professor of public policy, in an interview with...

News

Dynarski testifies before House Subcommittee on Education and Labor

May 10, 2019

College access has been getting a lot of buzz, but getting more people to enroll in higher education is only the first step. Helping people graduate is proving a larger hurdle, something the House Committee on Education and Labor’s Subcommittee on...

News

Brian Jacob honored as a Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentor

Apr 23, 2019

Brian Jacob, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy at the Ford School, Co-Director of the Education Policy Initiative (EPI) and Youth Policy Lab (YPL), and faculty director of the Ford School’s joint-doctoral program, was named as a...

State & Hill

HAILed it - Tuition-free promise attracts low-income students to U-M

Apr 5, 2019

A research study that centered around a large maize-and-blue-striped envelope caught the attention of more than just the students it sought to target. The work launched a larger initiative at the University of Michigan and is being lauded as...

More harm than good? Professor Brian Jacob criticizes the continued turnover of accountability systems for Michigan schools

Jan 18, 2019

During the waning days of 2018, a lame-duck session of the Michigan legislature voted to implement a new letter-grade apparatus for evaluating Michigan school performance. The implementation of a new accountability system may cause more headaches...

News

It’s HAILing coverage for Susan Dynarski and team

Dec 21, 2018

Last week, Susan Dynarski, Ford School professor, and her fellow researchers released a new research study titled “Closing the Gap: The Effect of a Targeted, Tuition-Free Promise on College Choices of High-Achieving, Low-Income Students.” Since...

News

HAILed it: Tuition-free promise effectively recruits low-income students to U-M

Dec 12, 2018

ANN ARBOR—High-achieving, low-income students who received personalized commitment of financial aid are more than twice as likely to apply, be admitted to and enroll in a top-tier university, according to a new University of Michigan...

News

New collaboration supports education research between U-M, MSU and state of Michigan

Nov 28, 2018

The launch of a new research collaboration and a data center at the University of Michigan marks the start of a unique collaboration between U-M, Michigan State University, the Michigan Department of Education and the Center for Educational...

Photo of a posterboard of MERI partners in the foreground; with kickoff event attendees networking in the background

Dynarski calls the legacy admission bump 'unconscionable'

Oct 30, 2018

As universities hone their admissions processes to reflect fairness and build a diverse student body, legacy students still have an advantage, warns Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times. Susan Dynarski, Ford School professor, agrees. “Legacy...

News

Professor Brian Jacob says Michigan student-teacher ratio is higher than reported estimations

Sep 28, 2018

As education in Michigan falls under ever greater scrutiny, one glaring issue seems to stand out: the state’s lopsided student-teacher ratio. One of the highest ratios in the nation, Ford School professor Brian Jacob believes the issue is even worse...

Professor Susan Dynarski’s research confirms the basis for radical educational innovation

Sep 28, 2018

In the most poverty-stricken school district in San Antonio, the work of Syracuse University’s Katherine Michelmore and Ford professor Susan Dynarski is helping to reshape educational reform. In an effort to bolster college-readiness, increase...

Slight improvement in Michigan education statistics not enough says Brian Jacob

Sep 21, 2018

After the release of the 2018 M-STEP (Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress) scores, the outlook on education in Michigan seems rather bleak, Jennifer Chambers reports in her August 29th, 2018 Detroit News article. Despite nominal increases...

News

Jacob: Grow Detroit’s Young Talent benefits youth “long after they receive their last paycheck”

Apr 13, 2018

The administrators of Grow Detroit’s Young Talent, a youth summer employment program, always knew that the program made a difference in participants’ lives. Now, that intuition is backed up by data. Researchers at the University of Michigan,...

Dynarski argues for universal SAT/ACT testing in her latest Brookings report

Feb 27, 2018

In her latest piece for the Brookings Institution, Susan Dynarski writes on the benefits of providing universal SAT and ACT testing, arguing their usefulness towards detecting academically talented students who typically “fall off the path to...

Susan Dynarski on Michigan Radio's "Stateside": Ways to fix America’s student loan mess

Feb 8, 2018

Susan Dynarski was interviewed by Cynthia Canty of Michigan Radio’s “Stateside” program for the recent on-air segment: “Australia, England offer clues on how to fix America’s student loan mess.” “We don’t have much of a safety net in our...

News

In Brookings, Jacob argues for greater support systems for community college students

Feb 7, 2018

In his most recent report for the Brookings Institution, Brian Jacob highlights the many advantages of support programs for community college students, with data showing a profound impact on students receiving these interventions. Jacob’s piece,...

Publication

Econ textbook study by Stevenson, Zlotnick highlights gender bias against women

Jan 19, 2018

New research conducted by Associate Professor of Public Policy Betsey Stevenson and Hanna Zlotnick (MPP ‘19) is highlighted in The Economist’s “How gender is (mis)represented in economics textbooks” and Inside Higher Ed’s “Gender Bias, by the...

In NYT, Susan Dynarski advises against online courses for struggling students

Jan 19, 2018

In this Sunday’s New York Times print edition, Susan Dynarski will dispute the effectiveness of online courses, particularly for less proficient students.Drawing on research Dynarski did for the Brookings Institution last October, Dynarski’s new New...