education policy initiative

Our Impact

Education policy

From cradle through career, education programs exist to help children and youth learn, grow, and succeed in school and in life. But how do decision makers know which interventions work? How can their investments address institutional and systemic...

Research centers

Research, learning, and impact The Ford School is home to or co-sponsor of a growing number of active, multi-disciplinary research centers and initiatives leveraging the knowledge and expertise across the University of Michigan. They serve as a...

News

Ford School team examines liberal arts impact on students’ lives a decade after graduation

Jun 11, 2021

What is the impact of a liberal arts education on students’ lives? University of Michigan researchers, including Ford School faculty members Paul Courant and Kevin Stange, were recently awarded a $1.1 million grant extension to answer this...

Headshots of Kevin Stange and Paul Courant

State & Hill

Building strength

Jun 10, 2021

With new leading-edge research and faces at the school, the Ford School builds depth in two key policy areas. Energy and the environment Economics, political science, psychology, and community engagement are at the roots of the Ford School’s...

News

MIDAS grant to assist Stange research on liberal arts education

Jun 4, 2021

A challenge in any analysis looking at multiple higher education institutions is that each institution may have different labels for the same course - ENG101 may be "Composition I" at one institution but "Thinking Like an Engineer" at another. Ford...

News

YPL examines Detroit students' college pathways

May 26, 2021

Academic and non-academic barriers are preventing Detroit high school students from enrolling and succeeding in college. Detroit Students’ College Pathways and Outcomes, a policy brief released by the Youth Policy Lab (YPL) at the University of...

Publication

Michigan’s HAIL scholarship program meaningfully changes students’ college trajectory, report shows

May 19, 2021

Research for years has shown that low-income students face unique barriers to applying to colleges, let alone being able to afford tuition and living costs. To address the concern that not enough high-achieving, low-income students were applying to...

Publication

Career and technical education offers pathways for students with disabilities in Michigan—YPL Brief

May 13, 2021

Career and Technical Education (CTE) could offer one way of bolstering educational attainment among and providing valuable job skills to students with disabilities (SWD). A new release by the Youth Policy Lab at the Ford School looks at CTE...

News

Biden's plan for universal preschool, explained - Weiland

May 12, 2021

On April 28, the Biden Administration announced the American Families Plan, which includes universal preschool for all three- and four-year-olds. Christina Weiland, associate professor of education at the Ford School, weighed in on the plan and...

News

Dynarski’s research and advocacy for a simplified FAFSA becomes reality

Apr 23, 2021

Professor Sue Dynarski laid out the reality of pursuing higher education for many students in a 2015 NYT op-ed. “Many smart students forgo college in the mistaken belief that they cannot afford it,” she wrote. “The financial aid system, which is...

Publication

New EPI report provides snapshot of pandemic challenges for early childhood education providers

Mar 29, 2021

Even in a steady-funded “best case” scenario, teacher turnover, decreases in enrollment, and new safety protocols strain resources and stall quality improvements. Early childhood education (ECE) centers across the country are facing unprecedented...

A parent/guardian and two young children in masks walking outdoors (Credit: Shutterstock)

News

Katherine Michelmore joins Ford School faculty, adding social and education policy expertise

Mar 25, 2021

On March 25, the University of Michigan Regents approved the appointment of Katherine Michelmore as associate professor of public policy, with tenure, effective August 30, 2021. Michelmore is a leading scholar and educator on the social safety...

News

Addressing structural inequity during Black History Month at the Ford School

Mar 1, 2021

The Ford School marked Black History Month by lifting up Black voices with a series of discussions about identifying inequities in society and seeking policy solutions to address them. Research centers, student groups, faculty, staff, and alumni all...

In the Media

Lewis: shrinking graduate pipelines, publication bottlenecks, and hope for reimagining graduate education

Feb 15, 2021 The Chronicle of Higher Education

“By the time we get to ’25 or ’26, we may look back and realize that we’ve reached a new plateau, that it [graduate student populaiton] was not as high as it was in 2010, let alone 2015,” said Earl Lewis, commenting on of the effects of the pandemic...

Publication

Dynarski’s research shows default options key to student loan repayment

Feb 13, 2021

Susan Dynarski’s recent research, “Designed to fail: Effects of the default option and information complexity on student loan repayment,” shows the powerful effects of default options and how making an income driven repayment (IDR) plan the default...

In the Media

Little promotes greater international collaboration between universities

Feb 4, 2021 News Xperts (India)

In a session on partnership in higher education at the Kerala Looks Ahead Conference (KLA), Professor Daniel Little discussed U.S. universities' interest in greater collaboration with foreign universities, noting that the U.S. "is interested to...

News

Parthasarathy on the dangers of facial recognition technology in schools

Jan 29, 2021 Los Angeles Times

As facial recognition technology has become more commonplace in law enforcement, some schools have considered implementing facial recognition technology on their respective campuses. However, after public backlash over privacy concerns, many...

News

Jacob and Dynarski ranked among top U.S. education policy influencers

Jan 11, 2021

Education Week released their 11th annual RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings—the top 200 university-based scholars who shape education practice and policy. Ford School professors Brian Jacob and Susan M. Dynarski were two of the four...

Brian Jacob, Sue Dynarski, and members of the Education Policy Initiative stand along the winding main staircase of the Ford School's home, Weill Hall

In the Media

Ending student loan relief poses a threat to new workers - Dynarski

Dec 7, 2020 NPR Studio 1A

Dynarski says on the NPR Studio 1A segment, Dollars And Sense: Unpausing Student Loan Payment, "We have a lot of people in debt and some people with a problem with that debt, so a small proportion means a lot of people in trouble. We are in the...

In the Media

Online instruction not less expensive for colleges, says Stange

Oct 19, 2020 CNBC

"It turns out it doesn't save [colleges] that much money, if any money, to shift online, holding constant the quality of what you are doing," said Stange. Watch Stange on CNBC consider "Is an online master's degree worth the...

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

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...

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

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...

News

Catch up on Ford School faculty news in the Fall 2017 edition of State & Hill magazine

Dec 29, 2017

Tamar Mitts and Robert Axelrod participated in a trilateral workshop on the roots and trajectories of violent extremism. Mitts spoke about the radicalization of Islamic State supporters on social media; Axelrod about the strengths and weaknesses of...

Jacob: Effects of labor market information on community college students' choice of major

May 1, 2017

Rachel Baker (University of California, Irvine), Eric Bettinger (Stanford University), Brian Jacob, and Ioana Marinescu (University of Chicago) co-authored a working paper, "The Effect of Labor Market Information on Community College Students' Major...

Jacob examines effects of Evidence Based Literacy Instruction on student reading

Jan 25, 2017

An NBER working paper by Brian Jacob, "When Evidence is Not Enough: Findings from a Randomized Evaluation of Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction," is forthcoming in Labour Economics. Abstract This paper reports the results of an experimental...