by Ana Luíza Matos de Oliveira

Brazil is a highly unequal country — so is the access to its higher education system. However, in the beginning of the 21st century (2001-2015), there was a convergence between the profile of Brazilian higher education students and the Brazilian population in terms of income, race, and region, although many inequalities still exist. Now, this process might be at risk.

From 2001 to 2015, economic growth and improvements in the labor market affected families’ spending decisions. Also, the budget for higher education presented significant growth and many programs aiming at democratizing access to higher education in Brazil — such as Reuni (expansion of the federal higher education system), Prouni (offer of scholarships in private institutions), loan schemes for students, affirmative action, and student assistance — were created or broadened. Policies in partnership with the private sector were put in place and are related to a significant growth in enrollment in private institutions in this period.

This led to greater social inclusion in higher education, as Graph 1 demonstrates.[1] It is also important to state that during this period there was a policy of increasing the value of the minimum wage (MW), which in 2020 is now R$ 1045 (USD 205).

Graph 1 – Students in Higher Education according to per capita income – Brazil (2001-2015)

Source: A. L. M. Oliveira (2019)

Graph 2 shows a rising trend of participation in higher education among people from the bottom 70% of the Brazilian income distribution (per capita family income) and a decrease in participation among the richest 30%. However, there is a sign of reversal in 2015.[2] continue reading…

In a post on Ezra Klein’s blog entitled “The recession’s gender gap: from ‘man-cession’ to ‘he-covery’,” Suzie Khimm notes that the recovery is happening for men but not so much for women. She quotes an Institute for Women’s Policy Research paper that refers to our research, found in this policy brief. Early childhood education and home health care represent great opportunities for improving quality of life for the care recipients as well as for the people who would become employed under these proposals. I will be listening for some mention of them by President Obama tomorrow night.

Reading the back and forth between Brad deLong and David Leonhardt over the structural versus cyclical nature of unemployment during the Great Recession, a question nagged at me, spurred by this quote from Leonhardt:

The data that the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on Thursday gives me a chance to explain why I disagree. In short, the relative performance of more educated and less educated workers over the last few years has not been the typical pattern for a recession. Less educated workers, by many measures, are faring worse than they ever have.

The ratio of the typical four-year college graduate’s pay to a typical high-school graduate’s pay hit a record in 2010 — 1.56. Since 2007, the inflation-adjusted median weekly pay of college graduates has risen 1.6 percent. The inflation-adjusted pay of every other educational group — high school dropouts, high school graduates and people who attended college but did not get a four-year degree — has fallen since 2007. The same is true over the last decade; amazingly, only college graduates have received a raise.

continue reading…

The Harlem Children’s Zone is an organization bent on addressing all the problems of poor families in its Manhattan catchment area.  The project involves many government and nonprofit programs and services that aim to improve the environment for disadvantaged kids outside of school. Established in 1997, it also includes a network of charter schools called, collectively, Promise Academy.

Doctoral candidate Will Dobbie and economist Roland G. Fryer Jr., both of Harvard, recently published a careful study of the Zone’s  impact on student achievement. They’ve shown that high quality schools—with or without community investments in health, parenting, and early childhood program—boost student achievement, while community investments without high quality schooling have little effect.

They’ve shown, to oversimplify, that schools matter.

One is tempted to say: Of course they do! Then again, ever since James Coleman’s 1966 study, Equality of Educational Opportunity, which convinced people that family effects dwarfed anything schools could do to promote equality, the importance of schooling is always worth demonstrating.

Interestingly, though this was not their primary focus, Dobbie and Fryer have also shown that money (doubtless well spent) is also vital in creating high quality schools. The successful HCZ schools Dobbie and Fryer studied spent $19,272 per student, while the median school district in New York State spent $16,171 and those at the 95th percentile of achievement spent $33,521. The HCZ schools (like some other successful charter schools in New York City) were able to offer longer school days, after-school programs, and additional “wrap-around” programs.

While one must applaud Dobbie and Fryer’s work, I am not convinced that demonstrating the importance of high quality schooling in closing the race achievement gap will have much effect on policy. First the public needs to be convinced that the racial achievement gap really matters to each of us (whether we are white, black, or brown). Racial inequality is undemocratic and unjust, but is it also economically costly to all of us and not just to those whose life chances are diminished. What does the U.S. lose in overall productivity (or other measures of collective economic well-being) as a result of unequal educational outcomes? Those questions will have to be answered, I believe, before the public will invest what’s required to make high-quality schools available for all Americans

Philosophic arguments about the importance of democratic ideals like equality and justice seem to hold less appeal today than economic arguments having to do with the bottom line for taxpayers. Dobbie and Fryer are among the most imaginative economists currently studying questions related to the race achievement gap. I hope they move on from careful and important evaluation work to some of the larger, more difficult underlying issues.