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<p> The Great Recession, starting around 2008, caused financial turmoil in America. Families and communities faced financial change and hardship. Funding for schools was negatively impacted by the downward turn in property values because the taxation of which was a major source of income for schools. This study investigated the relationship that changing school finances had with student achievement. Quantitative financial data and student achievement data were collected over four school years in Missouri and measured for strength of relationship. Findings from the analysis found no relationship between changing school finances and student achievement. Reduced funding negatively impacted schools, however, that did not translate directly to reduced student achievement.</p>

<p>This dissertation examines three unique, but related, research questions as three separate studies. In the first study, I examine the impact of accountability implementation on vertical equity of inputs. I compare changes in vertical equity at the time of NCLB implementation in states that had not previously implemented accountability policies?the treatment group?to states that had previously implemented NCLB-like policies?the control group. I find that the implementation of accountability policies did not improve vertical equity by distributing more resources to high poverty districts and potentially had a negative impact on vertical equity as low poverty districts potentially increased revenue and spending more than high poverty districts as a result of accountability implementation. In the second study, I examine the impact of an accountability policy change that identifies the bottom 5% of schools for corrective action. These schools, known as priority schools, must show increased performance within three years or face the threat of closure. I show that priority schools near the cutoff for determining priority status did not improve relative to those not receiving such designation, and in fact they performed increasingly worse in the three years subsequent to priority designation. In the third and final study, I investigate the impact of court-ordered education finance reform in New York State on equity of educational inputs. I find that equity of inputs in New York did not improve relative to states that did not undergo reform of their system of education funding. This indicates little to no impact of court-ordered education finance reform in New York. I also show that had the finance reform been implemented as intended, there would have been substantial improvements to both vertical and horizontal equity. Therefore, the lack of results seen in New York stems from a lack of follow through rather than a poorly designed plan for fixing equity of inputs.

<p> The gaps of school funding and student achievement are particularly pronounced in Illinois, raising statewide concerns about the inequity of school funding and the injustice of the achievement gap. While Illinois educators generally recognize the differences in funding levels and achievement levels in Illinois schools, studies to determine the relationships between the two are lacking. This study examines the relationship between per pupil spending and student achievement in Illinois elementary schools. This study also examines the relationship between student achievement and racial composition of the school and between student achievement and poverty level of the school. Additionally, relationships between per pupil spending and racial composition of the school and per pupil spending and poverty level of the school are examined. Finally, this study investigates the perceptions of principals on how funding inequity in their school affects student achievement.</p>

This study was conducted for the purpose of developing an alternative to the method presently used in the State of Florida for equalizing educational costs among public school districts in the K-12 program. For this purpose, an attempt was made to measure the effect of those factors which contribute to wage differentials for educational personnel among school districts through the use of econometric models. The results obtained from these models were used for constructing indexes reflecting the differences in cost experienced by school districts when purchasing the services of administrators and teachers. / Data for the study were collected primarily from state and local government agencies. This data included: information on salaries of teachers and administrators; personal characteristics of teachers and administrators and their assignments in the educational system; socio-economic characteristics of the population in the districts; environmental and locational factors; and the organization and composition of the school districts. / The sample of teachers and administrators was randomly selected and included approximately ten percent of the certified personnel in each district. The final sample contained 7,644 observations, of which 6,404 were teachers and 1,240 administrators during academic year 1976-77. / The results of this study challenge the view, implicit in the cost equalization method used in Florida, that variations in the cost-of-living in the districts correspond with variations in the cost of procuring equivalent personnel inputs. Furthermore, the results suggest that the present equalization method used in Florida favors large urban districts at the expense of less affluent rural districts. / It is recommended that future research in this area should be conducted using schools as the unit of analysis. This, may provide a more accurate measure of the effect of personal and job characteristics on the salaries paid by school districts. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: A, page: 4519. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

With national statistics indicating burgeoning student debt loads among emerging adults, but fewer studies analyzing the consequences of student borrowing, the purpose of this dissertation was to examine the association between student loan debt and the transition to family life among a nationally representative cohort of young adults between ages 20 and 34 using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 (NLSY97). The study was guided by three research aims: Aim 1) Examine the role of student loan debt in shaping the timing and sequencing of (1) full-time employment, (2) postsecondary enrollment, (3) cohabitation, (4) marriage, and (5) parenthood. Aim 2) Investigate the association between student debt and family formation pathways, net of socioeconomic confounders. Aim 3) Illuminate the potential observed and unobserved process(es) underlying the association between student debt and the transition to marriage and parenthood. All analyses were conducted separately by gender, given that recent studies strongly indicate that student loans disproportionately influence women's transitions into family life compared to men's. Grounded in a life course framework, the first aim was addressed using a latent class analysis (LCA) approach, which examined the association between student loan debt on the timing and sequencing of five-family related transitions: (1) full-time employment, (2) postsecondary enrollment, (3) cohabitation, (4) marriage, and (5) parenthood. Consistent with recent studies analyzing the relationship between student loan debt and the transition to marriage and parenthood (e.g., Addo, 2014; Bozick & Estacion, 2014; Nau, Dwyer, & Hodson, 2015), the results indicated that student loan receipt was significantly associated with women's pathways into family life, but that men's family formation pathways were relatively unaffected by student debt. Women who borrowed student loans to finance their undergraduate education exhibited a greater likelihood of transitioning to family formation pathways characterized by higher probabilities of work and cohabitation but lower probabilities of both marriage and parenthood compared to their counterparts without student debt. Men, in contrast, exhibited family formation patterns characterized by high probabilities of work, marriage, and fatherhood, regardless of student loan receipt. The risk of transitioning to family formation pathways relative to postponing family life was then assessed in subsequent analyses that included time-variant and -invariant controls for important socioeconomic confounders identified by previous empirical studies, such as income, educational histories, and family socioeconomic background, within a longitudinal LCA framework, also known as a Latent Transition Analysis (LTA), to address Aim 2. The results from the multinomial LTA models suggest that although student loan receipt was not associated with family formation pathways among men, high student debt to income ratios (SDTI) may present obstacles to family-related transitions relative to postponement among men with student debt. Among women, all three measures of student debt (i.e., student loan receipt, student loan amounts, and SDTI) were negatively associated with pathways characterized by high probabilities of marriage and motherhood. Yet, rather than discouraging family formation entirely, student debt also hastened the probability of transitioning to pathways characterized by high probabilities of cohabitation. The results suggest that paying down student debt may be a prerequisite for marriage among both men and women, especially when outstanding debt obligations represent a large proportion of one's annual income. However, in accordance with previous research, the perceived financial expectations for cohabitation may be lower than those related to marriage (e.g., Edin & Kefalas, 2005; Sassler, 2004; Silva, 2015), thus presenting an attractive option for sharing costs of living while paying down student debt, particularly among women. The last aim was addressed using a multilevel multiprocess (MLMP) approach. In the final set of analyses, the association between student loan debt and transition(s) to (1) cohabitation, (2) marriage and (3) parenthood were simultaneously estimated as interrelated processes, in addition to accounting for any potential unobserved individual-level characteristics that may increase or decrease one's hazard of family formation. The results from MLMP analyses suggest that student debt was negatively associated with transitions to marriage among both men and women, and that the consequence of delaying marriage may subsequently, indirectly decrease the likelihood of transitioning to parenthood. Much of the negative association between student debt and the hazard of transitioning to both marriage and parenthood was accounted for by processes related to transitioning in and out of cohabiting unions, suggesting that student debt may be an important factor in shaping the outcomes of romantic partnerships, especially in determining whether couples decide to make lifelong commitments such as marriage and parenthood. Overall, the findings from this study indicate that the decision to borrow student loans early in adulthood can result in long-term consequences for family life, particularly when outstanding debt obligations represent a relatively large proportion of annual incomes. Evidence of these extended consequences demonstrates the value in adopting a life course approach for analyzing the relationship between student debt and demographic behaviors, especially as the economic foundations for family formation have shifted toward greater expectations of personal responsibility. This greater emphasis on individual economic achievements regardless of gender, principally for marriage (Cherlin, 2000; 2016), may be particularly impactful for women with student debt, who are increasingly expected to financially contribute more to the households while carrying more debt and earning less income than their male counterparts. Taken together, the results from this study suggest that the ongoing trend in student borrowing will likely continue to play a key role in shaping future demographic patterns and behaviors, pinpointing the need for updating extant theories concerning the association between economic resources and family formation to also include explanations encompassing consumer debt. Particularly one that considers the disparate consequences of acquiring and paying debt by gender. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2018. / October 5, 2018. / Assortative Mating, Family Formation, Gender Inequality, Higher Education, Life Course, Student Loan Debt / Includes bibliographical references. / Miles G. Taylor, Professor Directing Dissertation; Francis D. Fincham, University Representative; Karin L. Brewster, Committee Member; Kathryn H. Tillman, Committee Member.

An empirical study was conducted analyzing the relationship between certain demographic, economic, and socio-political factors and state appropriation outcomes for public four-year colleges and universities in Florida, Illinois and Virginia over a twenty-one year period. The demographic factors included: total state population; college age population (both traditional and non-traditional); enrollment level; degree of urbanization; and population density. The economic factors included: per capita income; state revenue level; state unemployment rate; and degree of high technology industrialization. The socio-political factors included: participation rate in public higher education; voter turnout; and degree of political party competition. The conceptual framework underlying this study was derived primarily from Easton's (1965) political systems model. The data were drawn from the Grapevine and various federal data bases, and the method of analysis was a stepwise regression technique within a time series framework. Each state was analyzed separately. / The results suggest no consistency in the environmental factor/appropriation outcome relationship among the three states. The strength and direction of the relationships between the environmental variables tested and the state appropriation outcomes for public four-year colleges and universities varies from state to state. The conclusions drawn from the results of this study are twofold. First, it is evident that in all cases there is some relationship present between the external environment and state appropriations outcomes for public higher education over time. This is congruent with previous research in this area. Second, the variance between the states as illustrated by the results could have been due to methodological problems such as multicollinearity or it could have been due to more substantive reasons such as different political cultures. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-12, Section: A, page: 3636. / Major Professor: David W. Leslie. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

This study presents the possibilities of the use of commodity futures cycles in the management of university endowment portfolios. The literature review presents a discussion concerning the roles of various cycles in research, and delineates the scope of commodity spreads and their use in managing educational endowment portfolios. / Cycle analysis was used in this study to examine the data. The daily closing prices of five selected commodities covering time periods of about one to five years comprised the data. A computer program was used to calculate the differences (spreads) between the closing prices of the various commodities. / The computer programs, the Statistical Analysis System (SAS), was used for spectral analysis to investigate the presence of cycles in the data for the various spreads. The significance of the results was tested using the SAS Spectra Whitetest option which gives a printed output of Fisher's Kappa statistic and the Bartlett Komolgorov-Smirnov (K-S) test statistic. / The analysis yielded cyclical effects at each of three time frames: a 261.0-day cycle and a 163.12-day cycle in the long-term spreads; a 156.6-day cycle in the intermediate-term spreads; and, a 52.2-day cycle in the short-term spreads. Although the analysis produced useful information as to the relative strength of the periodic effects for various cycles, the exact turning point for a given cycle could not be precisely determined. / It was concluded that a manager or investor familiar with the spread cycles could incorporate information derived from cycle analysis into portfolio management techniques and trading strategies. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-11, Section: A, page: 3436. / Major Professor: Frank W. Banghart. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 37-07, Section: A, page: 4077. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1976.

This dissertation reports an investigation of Florida's three largest student financial aid programs. The programs include the Florida Student Assistance Grant (FSAG), the Florida Undergraduate Scholarship Fund (FUSF), and the Florida Gold Seal Diploma (Gold Seal). This is the first study on the outcomes of the three programs as well as their cumulative impacts. The program costs have risen 252% between 1987-88 and 1991-92 and are expected to continue to grow. / The study relies on social investment theory which asserts that there are calculable social and economic benefits for postsecondary education (Bowen, 1977; Leslie and Brinkman, 1988). This study analyzes the 31,327 public community college and university recipients for the Fall, 1991 semester. / The findings demonstrated that FSAG is serving the most needy students which was its intent. There is little linkage to the merit based programs, however, which could provide a better prepared student for college attendance. / The FUSF program is meeting its twofold goals of encouraging more students to complete a rigorous college preparatory curriculum and also retaining high achieving students within Florida. The program is not adequately reaching minority groups nor poorer students. / The Gold Seal program is rewarding a more diverse ethnic and racial spectrum of students but it is in its first year of operation and its profile needs examination. The program looks promising both in terms of student composition as well as its inclusion of vocational-technical operations. / The cumulative analysis demonstrated that research universities are attracting 40% of the awards and 52% of the dollars. Community colleges gather 39% of the awards and a smaller 25% of the dollars. The community colleges show the greatest disparity between their share of the total enrollment (50%) and both the number of awards (39%) and proportion of dollars (25%). / Florida's financial aid programs are successful in terms of their individual policy objectives, however, they leave a large gap in meeting the needs of older, non-traditional citizens. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: A, page: 2269. / Director: Louis W. Bender. / Thesis (Ed.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.