Meta Brown
Ohio State University, OH·Social Science
College is expensive, and STEM majors can be demanding. Students who choose STEM often earn more later, but up-front costs and tough curricula may push them toward choices that increase debt.
- Fields
Social Science
Education Research
- Topics
student debt
student loans
STEM education
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2029
What they work on
- Test whether college costs and the resulting educational debt drive student decisions, using causal analyses of population-level administrative data from the State of Ohio.
- Determine how student debt affects major choice, switching out of STEM majors and degree completion, comparing socioeconomic and demographic groups and types of public institution.
- Estimate how STEM majoring and debt jointly shape time to graduation, income, debt and financial burdens after graduation, and how these links have changed as debt loads grew.
- Describe how public university students experience decisions about debt, STEM majors and STEM careers, using qualitative interviews.
More about the research
Does student debt itself shape whether students enter, stay in or finish a STEM major? How do major and debt together affect life after graduation? The answers bear on the size of the nation's future STEM workforce.
Why it matters
The findings could inform colleges, states and policymakers about how borrowing and college costs affect who completes STEM degrees, and which socioeconomic and demographic groups are most affected. That evidence could guide financial aid and support policies aimed at widening access to STEM education and careers.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Matthew Wolfgram
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Education Research
Identify factors that help or hinder STEM persistence among Hmong American students at Wisconsin universities, using a survey and repeated interviews over time.
Lesley Berhan
University of Toledo, OH·Education Research
Examine how high school counselors, college counselors and recruiters, and faculty influence Black students' choice of engineering technology versus engineering, using focus group interviews and surveys.
Andrew Watkins
Case Western Reserve University, OH·Education Research
Develop a shared curriculum for the first two years of computer science across 15 Ohio colleges, and use it to create formal articulation agreements so community college credits transfer cleanly.
The school
Ohio State University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.