We study the causal effect of school curricula on students' political attitudes, exploiting a major textbook reform in China between 2004 and 2010. The sharp, staggered introduction of the new curriculum across provinces allows us to identify its causal effects. We examine government documents articulating desired consequences of the reform, and identify changes in textbooks reflecting these aims. A survey we conducted reveals that the reform was often successful in shaping attitudes, while evidence on behavior is mixed. Studying the new curriculum led to more positive views of China's governance, changed views on democracy, and increased skepticism toward free markets.
We study employers ' The large increase in the US college wage premium since 1980 strongly suggests that the supply of educated labor has not kept pace with its demand (Goldin and Katz 2008; Autor 2014). One impediment is that inflation-adjusted state funding of postsecondary education has stagnated since the mid-1990s and declined substantially in the last decade. The result is higher net tuition and fees for college students in public institutions (Baum and Ma 2014). Somewhat counteracting that trend is a marked increase in the generosity of federal Title IV financial aid. The for-profit sector has taken advantage of federal government largesse, as well as the increased demand for educated workers, to enlarge its presence in the postsecondary education market. For-profit colleges offer highly structured programs at convenient times and formats, and many have argued-at least going back to Freeman (1974)-that the for-profits respond more rapidly to changing employer demands than do public sector schools. For-profit institutions have expanded recently in fast-growing areas such as health and information technology.
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