Undone by the Market? - The Effects of School Vouchers on Educational Inputs

Sep 19, 2026

Upload by Ezra

Large-scale school voucher programs can change the educational experience of students in private schools in ways that extend beyond the effects observed in small-scale voucher settings. This paper uses eight large, state-level voucher-style programs from the late 1990s to mid-2000s and a dataset on school expenditures and teacher compensation to estimate how vouchers affect educational inputs. Results show worsened inputs for black students and improved inputs for white students, driven by changes at newly established schools.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages63

Reading Time22 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Research motivation and prior literature

Mechanisms through which vouchers affect inputs

Undone by the Market? The Effects of School Vouchers on Educational Inputs* Kevin Rinz Department of Economics University of Notre Dame Job Market Paper November 2015 Abstract By altering the market for private schooling, large-scale school voucher programs may have effects on the educational experience of private school students beyond the effects of small-scale programs. Using eight large, state-level, voucher-style programs adopted between the late 1990s and mid-2000s and a unique dataset on school expenditures and teacher compensation, I estimate the effects of vouchers on educational inputs experienced by students in private school. Large-scale, voucher-style programs alter the inputs students experience in ways that tend to worsen the experience of black students while improving the experience of white students. These effects are driven by changes in inputs deployed at newly established schools. Back-ofthe-envelope calculations indicate that the market effects of vouchers are large enough to substantially reduce the benefits of moving from public to private school for black students, reversing more than 100 percent of the gains in student-teacher ratio, 87 percent of the gain in per-teacher compensation, and 51 percent of the gain in instructional hours. My estimates suggest that extrapolation from prior studies may be inappropriate when considering how larger programs affect students. * I would like to thank Dan Hungerman for his advice and support; Abigail Wozniak, Jim Sullivan, Bill Evans, and seminar participants at the University of Notre Dame for helpful comments; Tim Weninger for advice on crowdsourcing data collection; and the Templeton Foundation and the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts at the University of Notre Dame for financial support. Contact address: 434 Flanner Hall, Notre Dame, [IN 46556. Email: krinz@nd.edu](IN 46556. Email: krinz@nd.edu) 1. Introduction For decades, advocates have promoted private school vouchers as a method of increasing parents’power to make decisions about their children’s education. While early voucher-style programs were generally geographically limited to particular cities, state-level programs began to proliferate in the late 1990s, and they have become increasingly popular in recent years.1 Twenty-three such programs were created by states from 2011 through 2015, and total spending on voucher-style programs now exceeds $1 billion annually. Prior research has focused mainly on the effects of city-level voucher programs and on voucher recipients. Students who have been randomized into voucher receipt are tracked over time and used to estimate effects of vouchers on educational outcomes. 2 While this type of analysis is important, it does not account for broader effects and generally treats private schools as black boxes.3 Programs that provide subsidies for private education on a large scale, including both traditional vouchers and voucher-style programs that operate through the tax code, may affect not just students who participate in them, but all private school students.4 For example, these programs may have larger “general equilibrium” or “market”effects on the sorting of students across schools, the price of private education, school entry and exit, or the educational inputs schools deploy. Partial equilibrium estimates may provide a misleading or incomplete picture of the effectiveness of vouchers if market effects are large in magnitude. My prior work with Hungerman (2015) suggests that there is substantial scope for large-scale voucher-style programs to influence the market for private education. We find that such programs increase private school revenue roughly dollar-for-dollar or more with state spending on them. When programs restrict eligibility to certain groups of students, the revenue increase is driven by increased private school enrollment; when programs offer unrestricted subsidies, the overall increase is driven by an in

FAQs

How does this paper study the effects of large-scale school voucher programs?

It uses eight large, state-level voucher-style programs adopted between the late 1990s and mid-2000s and a dataset on school expenditures and teacher compensation to estimate effects on educational inputs in private schools.

What overall patterns does the paper find by student race?

Vouchers tend to worsen the educational experience of black students while improving the experience of white students, with these effects tied to changes in inputs at newly established schools.

Why might prior studies be misleading when considering larger voucher programs?

The paper argues that market effects can be large in magnitude, so extrapolating from prior, smaller or city-level studies may not capture how larger programs change student sorting, school entry/exit, and the inputs schools deploy.

Sep 19, 2026

Upload by Ezra