The impact of student loans on college access,completion, and returns

Nearly half of all first‐time undergraduates take a loan to pay for college, and many students will borrow tens of thousands of dollars by the time they leave. Low‐income students and students of color borrow student loans more often and in larger amounts, yet attend less selective institutions, are more likely to drop out with debt. Among students who complete college, those with larger amounts of debt may struggle to pay back their loans or to invest in a house, family, or future education. Researchers are just beginning to untangle how the availability and use of student loans affects college access, educational attainment, and life after college, yet this topic has important implications for economic inequality and social stratification. In this article, we summarize what is known and what remains to be investigated, about the impact of student loan availability and use on college enrollment, degree completion, and postcollege outcomes.     

Minding the Gap: An Exploratory Study Applying Theory to Nonprofit Board Management of Executive Transitions

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Nonprofit boards of directors are responsible for overseeing executive transitions, and the practitioner literature is...     

Mechanisms of Organizational Commitment: Adding Frames to Greedy Institution Theory

How do organizations that make significant physical, emotional, and intellectual demands foster commitment and loyalty from voluntary participants? Greedy institution theory (Coser 1974 ) answers this question by identifying structural elements that foster participants' undivided commitment to “greedy” groups, those in which participants' involvement interferes with and takes precedence over their involvement in other social spheres. In this article, I argue for the expansion of greedy institution theory to include frames and framing processes as “greedy” organizational tools that work on the microinteractional level. Using data from an ethnographic study of an intensive program that prepares low‐income students of color to attend elite boarding high schools, I show how the organization's “family” frame mobilized participants and encouraged interpretations and interactions that helped students persist in the program and remain committed to the organization. I argue that turning our attention to frames and framing processes will increase our understanding of the tools organizations use on a microinteractional level to build and repair participants' loyalty and commitment.     

A comparative assessment of track plates to quantify fine scale variations in the relative abundance of Norway rats in urban slums

Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) living in urban environments are a critical public health and economic problem, particularly in urban slums where residents are at a higher risk for rat borne diseases, yet convenient methods to quantitatively assess population sizes are lacking. We evaluated track plates as a method to determine rat distribution and relative abundance in a complex urban slum environment by correlating the presence and intensity of rat-specific marks on track plates with findings from rat infestation surveys and trapping of rats to population exhaustion. To integrate the zero-inflated track plate data we developed a two-component mixture model with one binary and one censored continuous component. Track plate mark-intensity was highly correlated with signs of rodent infestation (all coefficients between 0.61 and 0.79 and all p-values?<?0.05). Moreover, the mean level of pre-trapping rat-mark intensity on plates was significantly associated with the number of rats captured subsequently (Odds ratio1.38; 95 % CI 1.19–1.61) and declined significantly following trapping (Odds ratio 0.86; 95 % CI 0.78–0.95). Track plates provided robust proxy measurements of rat abundance and distribution and detected rat presence even when populations appeared ‘trapped out’. Tracking plates are relatively easy and inexpensive methods that can be used to intensively sample settings such as urban slums, where traditional trapping or mark-recapture studies are impossible to implement, and therefore the results can inform and assess the impact of targeted urban rodent control campaigns.     

DOES BANKRUPTCY LAW AFFECT BUSINESS TURNOVER? EVIDENCE FROM NEW AND EXISTING BUSINESS

This study examines how differences in state bankruptcy laws, specifically the homestead exemption, affect business turnover by studying both new and existing businesses. We focus on areas just near state boundaries to control for unobserved local attributes to better isolate the effect of more wealth protection. We find that an increase in the homestead exemption attracts new businesses but also has a positive impact on existing businesses, suggesting that asset protection through bankruptcy law encourages successful entrepreneurs to incur the risks. Our results indicate that the personal bankruptcy law is an important policy tool that governments can use to encourage business growth without causing business turnover. (JEL K30, K36, R11, R1)     

Mechanisms of Adherence in a Harm Reduction Housing Program

Advances in clinical therapies for people living with HIV have greatly increased life expectancies, but the high levels of adherence that are necessary for clinical success are infrequently achieved, especially for chronically homeless substance users. The Open Door is a harm reduction housing program that seeks to improve clinical outcomes for this population. We present findings from qualitative interviews with residents of the program, conducted to explore facilitators of residents’ success in the program, which is ultimately defined as HIV clinical adherence. Two major themes developed. Positive changes captures processes or characteristics that residents reported as having changed as a result of living in the program. Mechanisms of success reflects aspects of the program to which residents attributed their improved adherence. Given that improving adherence in vulnerable populations has both clinical and public health implications, our study suggests future avenues for research and foundations on which to build future interventions.     

Social Movement Theory and the “Modern Day Tea Party”

The rise of the Tea Party movement took many political observers by surprise, but social movement theory can help us to understand how the Tea Party began. Frustration with the federal government's plans for economic recovery, combined with opposition to President Obama's election, morphed into nationwide protests and a vocal presence in the 2010 midterm elections. This paper uses the Tea Party as an example to illustrate social movement life cycles, explaining relevant theories, their application to the movement in each phase of its development, and areas in which the Tea Party challenges current literature on social movements. Social movement theory is discussed as a tool that is constantly being honed as new research increases our understanding of how movements develop and function.     

Admissibility in Games1

Suppose that each player in a game is rational, each player thinks the other players are rational, and so on. Also, suppose that rationality is taken to incorporate an admissibility requirement—that is, the avoidance of weakly dominated strategies. Which strategies can be played? We provide an epistemic framework in which to address this question. Specifically, we formulate conditions of rationality and mth‐order assumption of rationality (RmAR) and rationality and common assumption of rationality (RCAR). We show that (i) RCAR is characterized by a solution concept we call a “self‐admissible set”; (ii) in a “complete” type structure, RmAR is characterized by the set of strategies that survive m+1 rounds of elimination of inadmissible strategies; (iii) under certain conditions, RCAR is impossible in a complete structure.