Research in Progress

Since 2020, public spending on private school choice programs has doubled to $10 billion. As school choice expands rapidly in the nation, it is important to understand how these programs not only affect students who use these programs but also those left behind in public schools. In this paper, I document which students select into Indiana's private school voucher program and estimate the effect of voucher student exit on their classmates who are left behind in public schools. Contrary to school choice models, I find no evidence of positive selection into the voucher program. Instead, students with higher rates of past disciplinary infractions opt into the program. On their exit, students with disciplinary records cause 2.7 fewer in-school suspensions and 1.7 fewer out-of-school suspensions per 100 left-behind classmates. These effects are less salient where educators' monitoring costs appear to be lower (e.g. younger grades and smaller classes). In contrast, the exit of students who do not have past disciplinary infractions cause no change in their left-behind classmates. My results suggest student reallocation improves the peer quality of public schools, rather than worsens it, contrary to predictions from most school choice models.



In the 2024-25 school year, around $10 billion of public funds have been allocated to private schools in the name of school choice. However, due to data limitations we know little about how subsidizing private education affects tuition prices. In this paper, I use student-level tuition data from Indiana to study how its statewide voucher program affects private school tuition. Specifically, I model then estimate how the voucher amount and voucher eligibility differentially affect tuition. I find a one dollar increase in the voucher amount decreases tuition by $1.16 when tuition is above the voucher amount but causes no change when tuition is below the voucher amount. In contrast, an additional family that qualifies for the voucher increases tuition by $11 whether tuition is above or below the voucher amount. This corresponds to an average increase of $140,000 in tuition revenue per school. The affect of vouchers on tuition vary by religious affiliation, implying schools of different types face different marginal costs of education.


In this paper, I study how Indiana's expansion in private school voucher eligibility affects teacher pay. Despite political pressure from unions against private school voucher programs, I find teachers see gains of \$1,362 on average. These pay increases are concentrated among teachers with many nearby private schools and teachers with at least five years of experience. I find no differential effect on teacher pay in districts with low, medium, or high union membership. I find public school districts do not increase external funding through budget reallocation or referendums to pay for these increases