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Veronica Minaya

Senior Research Associate and Program Lead

Veronica Minaya is a senior research associate and program lead at CCRC. Her research focuses on the economics of postsecondary education and workforce development, with particular attention to community college reforms, transitions from high school to college and from college to employment, financial aid, and labor market outcomes after college. She has led multiple large-scale research projects in partnership with state higher education systems and has collaborated closely with community colleges to examine the design and implementation of programs that support student retention, degree attainment, and successful transition into the labor market. Minaya applies experimental and quasi-experimental methods to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of higher education policies and interventions. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Education Finance and Policy, Economics of Education Review, European Economic Review, Fiscal Studies, and Research in Higher Education.

Prior to joining CCRC, she worked as a consultant for the World Bank and United Nations agencies on education and rural development initiatives. Her experience includes contributing to impact evaluations, supporting the development of monitoring and evaluation systems, and conducting fieldwork in multiple international contexts, including conflict-affected regions.

Minaya is also an adjunct professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a research affiliate of the Postsecondary Economics and Policy Research Project—a collaborative initiative involving researchers from George Washington University, Columbia University, and legal scholars focused on accountability in higher education.  Minaya holds a PhD in economics and education from Teachers College, Columbia University; a master’s degree in public administration and international development from Harvard University; and a BA in economics from Universidad del Pacífico in Peru.

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Publications by Veronica Minaya

March 2024

Challenges and Opportunity: An Examination of Barriers to Postsecondary Academic Success

This Annenberg Institute working paper examines the relationship between community college students’ academic persistence and their time utilization, engagement with campus resources, and financial and mental well-being, as well as the relative importance of these factors for students’ educational attainment.
March 2024

Whole-College Reforms in Community Colleges: Guided Pathways Practices and Early Academic Success in Three States

Using institutional survey and administrative data, this paper examines the association between statewide adoption of guided pathways practices by community colleges in Tennessee, Ohio, and Washington and improvements in first-year student outcomes.
February 2024

Heterogeneity in Labor Market Returns to Master’s Degrees: Evidence from Ohio

This Annenberg Institute working paper provides up-to-date causal evidence on labor market returns to master’s degrees and examines heterogeneity in the returns by field area, student demographics, and initial labor market conditions.
December 2022

The Impact of Dual Enrollment on College Application Choice and Admission Success

Using a regression discontinuity approach and data from two cohorts of students in one state, this paper examines the effect of taking dual enrollment credits on the number of in-state public colleges students apply and are admitted to and the selectivity of those colleges.
December 2022

The Effect of Job Displacement on College Enrollment: Evidence From Ohio

Using employer-employee-student matched administrative data from Ohio, this paper provides the first direct evidence of workers' enrollment responses following mass layoffs in the United States.
July 2022

A Strategy for Estimating the Effects of Whole-College Guided Pathways Reforms in Community Colleges

This paper presents a methodology for assessing the scale of adoption and estimating the causal effects of guided pathways within states and across colleges that have adopted the approach.
February 2021

Can Dual Enrollment Algebra Reduce Racial/Ethnic Gaps in Early STEM Outcomes? Evidence From Florida

Using descriptive methods as well as a quasi-experimental approach, this report examines the early college outcomes of Florida high school students who enrolled in a dual enrollment college algebra course.
October 2020

High School Dual Enrollment in Florida: Effects on College Outcomes by Race/Ethnicity and Course Modality

Using data on two cohorts of Florida students who started public high school in 2007 and 2012, this report analyzes dual enrollment course-taking and outcomes by racial/ethnic group (Black, Hispanic, White) and course modality (face-to-face on-college-campus, face-to-face off-campus, and online).
August 2020

Do Differential Grading Standards Across Fields Matter for Major Choice? Evidence From a Policy Change in Florida

Using administrative data from Florida, this article examines the effect of changing the grading scale from whole-letter grades to plus/minus grades on STEM major choice.
August 2020

Labor Market Trajectories for Community College Graduates: New Evidence Spanning the Great Recession

This paper examines returns to terminal associate degrees and certificates up to 11 years after students initially entered a community college in Ohio. The authors use an individual fixed-effects approach that controls for students’ pre-enrollment earnings and allows the returns to credential completion to vary over time.
December 2016

Labor Market Outcomes and Postsecondary Accountability: Are Imperfect Metrics Better Than None?

This NBER working paper uses state administrative data and unemployment records to construct a variety of possible institution-level labor market outcome metrics to explore how sensitive institutional ratings are to the choice of labor market metric, length of follow-up, and inclusion of adjustments for student characteristics.
July 2015

Should Student Employment Be Subsidized? Conditional Counterfactuals and the Outcomes of Work-Study Participation

Using two waves of the Beginning Postsecondary Student survey, this paper provides the first national estimates of the effect of the Federal Work-Study program on students' academic and labor market outcomes.
March 2023

Implementing the Federal Work-Study Program: A Resource Utilization & Cost Study

Recent Publications

March 2024

Challenges and Opportunity: An Examination of Barriers to Postsecondary Academic Success

March 2024

Whole-College Reforms in Community Colleges: Guided Pathways Practices and Early Academic Success in Three States

February 2024

Heterogeneity in Labor Market Returns to Master’s Degrees: Evidence from Ohio

December 2022

The Impact of Dual Enrollment on College Application Choice and Admission Success

Recent Presentations

March 2023

Implementing the Federal Work-Study Program: A Resource Utilization & Cost Study

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