Recent Media Coverage
Some of 2023’s Best Higher Education Books Forbes, December 2023
California Tried to Warn Us Slate, November 2023
No high school calculus, chemistry class? Caltech has a new admission work-around Los Angeles Times, August 2023
Affirmative Action Ruling Shakes Universities Over More Than Race New York Times, July 2023
‘A cautionary tale’: colleges in states with affirmative action bans report racial disparities The Guardian, July 2023
How American universities will react as race-based admissions end The Economist, June 2023
Supreme Court Bans Affirmative Action: What It Means for College Admissions (video) Wall Street Journal, June 2023
State affirmative action bans helped White, Asian students, hurt others Washington Post, June 2023
How It Feels to Have Your Life Changed By Affirmative Action New York Times, June 2023
Examining the impact of California’s ban on affirmative action in public schools Morning Edition (NPR), June 2023
How ending affirmative action changed California (Podcast) The Indicator (NPR), June 2023
The SATs are: a) dying; b) already dead; c) alive and well; d) here forever Vox, May 2023
With Court poised to eliminate use of race in admissions, some states offer a sobering view Boston Globe, April 2023
Class-Based Affirmative Action: What Is It and How Would It Work? Teen Vogue, February 2023
As Harvard braces for a Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action, what comes next? WBUR (NPR), December 2022
The future of affirmative action On Point (NPR), November 2022
California banned affirmative action in 1996. Inside the UC struggle for diversity Los Angeles Times, October 2022
Supreme Court to judge affirmative action in college admissions Boston Globe, October 2022
The Invisible College Barrier Washington Monthly, August 2022
Colleges Weigh New Admissions Strategies Wall Street Journal, August 2022
In Economics, Grade Restrictions Weed Out Students of Color Undark Magazine, June 2022
The Returns to an Economics Degree (Podcast) AEA Research Highlight, May 2022
The University of Impossible-to-Get-Into (Podcast) Freakonomics, April 2022
After MIT reinstates SAT and ACT mandate, will other colleges follow? NBC News, March 2022
What to do after affirmative action Slow Boring, Feb. 2022
Ending college affirmative action could have ripple effect for Black, Latino students NBC News, Jan. 2022
The Supreme Court Gets Ready to End Affirmative Action The New Republic, Jan. 2022
Can school be normal again? (Podcast) The Weeds (Vox), Dec. 2021
Getting Into a Highly Selective College Is Hard. Getting Into a Lucrative Major Can Be Harder Chronicle of Higher Ed., Dec. 2021
University of California blasts Atlantic story on admissions Washington Post, July 2021
Recent Op-Eds
Students Shouldn’t Always Choose Higher-Paying Majors Chronicle of Higher Education, March 2023
Grade inflation is just plain bad. Right? Maybe not Washington Post, September 2021
Policy Briefs
I wrote a short policy brief series, released through the UC ClioMetric History Project, that provided topical analyses of contemporary issues in economics and higher education.
2020.1: Grade Inflation at More- and Less-Affluent High Schools
2020.2: Increasing Bias in SAT Test Scores? A Variation on Simpson’s Paradox
2020.3: College Major Restrictions and Student Stratification
2020.4: Proposition 209 and Affirmative Action at the University of California
2020.5: Mismatch at the University of California before Proposition 209
I have also written policy briefs in other settings:
Restricted access to lucrative college majors harms underrepresented students most, with Aashish Mehta. 2023.
Relationship of the SAT/ACT to College Performance at the University of California, with coauthors (unsigned). 2020.
Approaching a Tipping Point? A History and Prospectus of Funding for the University of California, with John Douglass. 2018.
Media: The New York Times, Inside Higher Ed, University World News