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Deming Named Professor of Education

Associate Professor David Deming has been promoted to full professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Deming is an economist interested in educational inequality and the impact of education policies on long-term outcomes. Deming formally joined the HGSE faculty in 2011.

“David’s scholarship addresses fundamentally important questions in exceptionally innovative ways. The rigor and relevance of his work — on subjects ranging from the long-term benefits of the Head Start program, the value of degrees from for-profit colleges, and the effects of racial segregation on academic achievement and life outcomes — make his findings absolutely essential reading for academics and policymakers alike,” said Dean James Ryan. “While he has already accomplished a great deal so early in his career, I am incredibly excited to see the impact David will have on the field in the future, and I am thrilled to recognize him with this very well-deserved promotion.”

“This promotion allows me to focus on the things that really matter – research, teaching, mentoring, and trying my hardest to make the world a better place,” Deming said. “This is an incredible honor and I feel duty-bound to make the most of it.”

Since coming to HGSE, Deming has earned an Early Career Award from the Association for Education Finance and Policy for research that substantially contributes to the field of education finance and policy. In 2013, Deming was named a William T. Grant Scholar for his project, The Long-Run Influence of School Accountability: Impacts, Mechanisms and Policy Implications, which explores the impact of test-based school accountability on post-secondary attainment and earnings, how high-stakes accountability impacts outcomes, and how test-based accountability in high school can complement college preparation. Deming has spent the past year as a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Deming’s current research includes studying the end of race-based busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg (North Carolina), understanding the rise of for-profit postsecondary education and the consequences for student outcomes, and exploring the policy implications of expanding access to early childhood education. And, he is increasingly focusing on the link between education and rising inequality.

“One hundred years ago, the high school movement made the U.S. a world leader in mass education. Now, high school is no longer enough,” Deming said. “The U.S. higher education system has historically been one of our greatest strengths as a nation and it is an engine of economic growth. Yet access to a high quality college education is more rationed than it has ever been. We need a college movement for the 21st century. But what is the right way to get there?”

Prior to joining HGSE, Deming spent a year as an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He earned his Ph.D. in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, an M.P.P. from University of California–Berkeley, and a B.A./B.S. in economics and political science from Ohio State University.

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