Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education

The Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education is committed to advancing student outcomes through economic evaluations that support research-backed decisions in education

Our Mission: To improve education and human capital development by producing high quality evidence on the costs, effects, and economic benefits of policies and interventions.

The Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education (CBCSE) has produced a vast portfolio of research, applied and methodological, with the goals of improving educational investments and the quality of evidence for policy. Our work spans important topics in the economics of education related to early childhood, k-12, postsecondary education, and beyond.


Featured Publication

Economic Evaluation in Education: Cost-Effectiveness and Benefit-Cost Analysis (previously titled Cost-Effectiveness Analysis ) is the only full-length book to provide readers with the step-by-step methods they need to plan and implement a benefit-cost analysis in education. The authors examine a range of issues, including how to identify, measure, and distribute costs; how to measure effectiveness, utility, and benefits; and how to incorporate cost evaluations into the decision-making process. The updates to the Third Edition reflect the considerable methodological development in the evaluation literature, and the greater empiricism practiced by education researchers, to help readers learn to apply more advanced methods to their own analyses.

To grab a copy of the book visit: Sage Textbooks


Project Updates & News

The Benefits of Adequacy

Estimating the Economic Impacts of Pennsylvania’s Basic Education Funding Commission

David Loeb, Katie Pullom, & Brooks Bowden-June 2024

Empirical Support for Establishing Common Assumptions in Cost Research in Education

Robert Shand & Brooks Bowden - Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness.

 

Small Investments for Big Gains

Transforming Wraparound Services into an Engine of Opportunity

Brooks Bowden in Brookings’ Brown Center Chalkboard

An Economic Evaluation of Costs and Benefits of Providing Comprehensive Supports to Students in Elementary School

Brooks Bowden, Robert Shand, Henry Levin, Atsuko Muroga, and Anyi Wang published in Prevention Science.