Skip to main content
Journal cover image

School spirit: Legislator school ties and state funding for higher education

Publication ,  Journal Article
Chatterji, AK; Kim, J; McDevitt, RC
Published in: Journal of Public Economics
August 1, 2018

We explore a new mechanism to understand state funding for public colleges and universities by leveraging data on the educational experiences of state legislators, specifically if and where they received postsecondary education. Using novel, hand-collected data from 2002 through 2014, we provide comprehensive documentation – for the first time in the literature – on the educational backgrounds of state legislators. We find a statistically significant, positive association between the share of legislators who attended their states’ public institutions and state funding for their entire public higher-education system. We also find a similar positive relationship between the share of state legislators who attended particular campuses of the state's public university system and funding for those campuses. This relationship is more pronounced among publicly educated legislators who represent legislative districts close to their alma mater's district, and becomes most consequential when the legislator's district contains his or her alma mater. We discuss the implications of our findings for academic studies on how politics and legislators’ personal experiences influence support for higher education.

Duke Scholars

Altmetric Attention Stats
Dimensions Citation Stats

Published In

Journal of Public Economics

DOI

ISSN

0047-2727

Publication Date

August 1, 2018

Volume

164

Start / End Page

254 / 269

Related Subject Headings

  • Economics
  • 3803 Economic theory
  • 3801 Applied economics
  • 1403 Econometrics
  • 1402 Applied Economics
  • 1401 Economic Theory
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Chatterji, A. K., Kim, J., & McDevitt, R. C. (2018). School spirit: Legislator school ties and state funding for higher education. Journal of Public Economics, 164, 254–269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.05.013
Chatterji, A. K., J. Kim, and R. C. McDevitt. “School spirit: Legislator school ties and state funding for higher education.” Journal of Public Economics 164 (August 1, 2018): 254–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.05.013.
Chatterji AK, Kim J, McDevitt RC. School spirit: Legislator school ties and state funding for higher education. Journal of Public Economics. 2018 Aug 1;164:254–69.
Chatterji, A. K., et al. “School spirit: Legislator school ties and state funding for higher education.” Journal of Public Economics, vol. 164, Aug. 2018, pp. 254–69. Scopus, doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.05.013.
Chatterji AK, Kim J, McDevitt RC. School spirit: Legislator school ties and state funding for higher education. Journal of Public Economics. 2018 Aug 1;164:254–269.
Journal cover image

Published In

Journal of Public Economics

DOI

ISSN

0047-2727

Publication Date

August 1, 2018

Volume

164

Start / End Page

254 / 269

Related Subject Headings

  • Economics
  • 3803 Economic theory
  • 3801 Applied economics
  • 1403 Econometrics
  • 1402 Applied Economics
  • 1401 Economic Theory