3/17/14 – Dr. Dylan Conger Speaks at LBJ School Brown Bag Series

Professor Dylan Conger of George Washington University presented her paper Gender Imbalance in Higher Education: Evidence from the Texas Top Ten Percent to the LBJ School community on March 17, 2014. The female advantage in college enrollment has generated concern among university officials and sparked new debate about gender-conscious college admissions.  Her paper uses unique data from the University of Texas at Austin to demonstrate that the Texas Top 10 Percent Plan, which guarantees university admission to students who graduate in the top decile of their high school class, significantly increased the number of females admitted to the university.  We find no evidence, however, that the university attempted to restore gender balance by lowering the admissions standards for males who were ineligible for guaranteed admission.

Dylan Conger is Associate Professor at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University, Director of the Masters in Public Policy Program, and a research affiliate at the George Washington Institute of Public Policy and New York University’s Institute for Education and Social Policy.  Dr. Conger’s research concerns disadvantaged, immigrant, and minority youth with a focus on education policies and urban areas. Current projects include examining the effects of public policies and programs on the educational outcomes of undocumented immigrant and English Language Learners; estimating the effect of Advanced Placement courses on educational outcomes; and identifying the sources of gender disparities in secondary and post-secondary educational outcomes.  Dr. Conger currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Association for Education Finance and Policy, the Technical Advisory Panel of the National Center for Education Statistics’ National Assessment of Educational Progress High School Transcript Study, and the Editorial Boards of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis and Educational Researcher. Before joining George Washington University, Dr. Conger held research positions at the Vera Institute of Justice and Abt Associates, Inc. where she conducted implementation and impact evaluations of large and small-scale social and education programs.  Dr. Conger received her BA in Ethnic Studies from the University of California at Berkeley, her MPP from the University of Michigan, and her PhD in public policy from New York University.