Kevin Stange

Professor of Public Policy, co-director of the Education Policy Initiative

Kevin Stange is an Professor of Public Policy and co-director of the Education Policy Initiative at the University of Michigan where he teaches graduate courses in higher education policy, economics, and quantitative methods. He is also a faculty res...

News

Federal funding supports critical education research at the University of Michigan

Mar 21, 2025

A new brief from the Ford School's Education Policy Initiative and Youth Policy Lab shows the impact of federally funded education research. The policy-relevant research is developed in partnership with local and state agencies, practitioners, and po...

Federal funding supports critical education research at the University of Michigan

Publication

Groundbreaking data from College and Beyond II help researchers examine diverse college experiences

Jan 10, 2023

Researchers have known for decades that attending college is associated with wide-ranging benefits to individuals and society. What is not entirely clear are the mechanisms that connect these beneficial outcomes with the undergraduate experience. For...

Groundbreaking data from College and Beyond II help researchers examine diverse college experiences

State & Hill

COVID-19 and education: A tough time for all

Dec 19, 2022

Ford School education researchers look for answers By Shaun Manning From early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally altered public education in the United States. Many schools introduced remote learning for at least part of the 2020-2021 ...

COVID-19 and education: A tough time for all

State & Hill

Faculty Findings - Spring 2020

May 22, 2020

Robin Jacob on closing early childhood achievement gaps The first five years of a child’s life are considered the most critical for development. But for too many children from low-income households, learning opportunities in those first years lag be...

Report

Understanding Michigan’s Reconnect Program Applicants

October 30, 2025

Alex Bartik, Brad Hershbein, Brian Jacob, Kevin Stange, Bryan Stuart

The Michigan Reconnect Program was launched in 2021, providing free community college tuition to Michiganders who are 25 or older and who have not already earned a college degree. In this report, the authors summarize the characteristics of individua...

cover photo of reconnect 2025 report: a young female checking information on a laptop

Michigan Reconnect

November 2022 - October 2025

Brian Jacob, Kevin Stange, Brad Hershbein, Alex Bartik, Bryan Stuart

This project examined the characteristic of participants of Michigan Reconnect, a scholarship program that provides adults age 25 and older with tuition-free in-district community college and that is overseen by the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity's (MDLEO) Office of Sixty by 30. This work is part of our long partnership with MDLEO and builds upon our previous projects to study Futures for Frontliners, a similar program that provided tuition support to those in essential jobs early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research on Reconnect compared applicants to the broader pool...

Two women in the forefront taking notes and one is smiling at the camera