CBCSE History

The Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education builds on the work of Henry Levin, who in 1970 published the first article applying the economic principles of cost-effectiveness analysis to education in a study addressing teacher recruitment and retention. In 1975, Levin detailed the “ingredients method” for determining costs of educational interventions, which begins with the identification of all resources required to implement a program. Since then this method has been further developed and applied in numerous benefit-cost and cost-effectiveness analyses of educational interventions. In 2007, CBCSE was officially constituted as a research center based at Teachers College, Columbia University, to conduct research on the productivity of educational programs.

In 2021, following Levin’s retirement from Teachers College, CBCSE moved to the University of Pennsylvania under the leadership of Professor Brooks Bowden. Bowden began working with the center in 2009 and has published many articles and reports, as well as co-authoring the 3rd edition of Levin’s textbook on cost-effectiveness, Economic Evaluation in Education: Cost-Effectiveness and Benefit-Cost Analysis. Levin continues to be active in CBCSE’s work and the center’s mission to improve the educational outcomes of vulnerable children through economic evaluation.

About Henry Levin

Henry Levin is a key contributor in the field of the economics of education. He retired from Teachers College, Columbia University, as the William H. Kilpatrick Professor of Economics & Education. He is also the David Jacks Professor of Higher Education and Economics, Emeritus, at Stanford University. In addition to founding and directing the CBCSE, he has been Director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, and of the Accelerated Schools Project. In 1992, the New York Times named him one of “nine national leaders in education innovation”. He is profiled in the 2008 book Those Who Dared: Five Visionaries Who Changed American Education.

Levin shares his experiences and insights in a series of video interviews from Inside the Academy of Education, from Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University.