Bridget Terry Long

Blends an economist's methods with practical insights

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By KARIN FISCHER

In January, as the Harvard University campus exploded over remarks made by the institution's president, Lawrence H. Summers, who suggested that women may not excel in mathematics and science because of innate differences between the sexes, Bridget Terry Long, an associate professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, was preparing to publish a paper detailing the results of some of her latest research.

The question the paper posed was relevant to the campus debate: Do female instructors affect female students' interest in subjects in which women tend to be underrepresented? Ms. Long and her co-author, Eric P. Bettinger, an assistant professor of economics at Case Western Reserve University, found that the answer varied by subject. Female faculty members increased student interest in mathematics and geology, for instance, but appeared to have little impact on the study of engineering, physics, and computer science.

The paper's topic "is particularly hot here right now, which I think makes it great to get into these issues," Ms. Long said of her findings, which were published in the May issue of the American Economic Review. "You jump right in and you create information that's helpful."

Ms. Long has not shied away from other questions both timely and tough. Much of her work has focused on how financial aid affects access to higher education and has served as a reality check for some popular recent federal and state initiatives. She has found, for example, that the federal Hope and Lifetime Learning tax credits passed in the late 1990s have largely failed to increase the number of low-income students who attend college.

Those students' families are less likely to qualify for the credits because their earnings, and therefore their tax liability, are too modest. Instead of making college possible for lower-income students, the credits benefit students from higher-earning families who were probably already college bound, Ms. Long says.

Her research suggests that the tax credits, as well as merit-based aid programs like Georgia's HOPE Scholarship, may also encourage some colleges to raise tuition. In theory, the credits made college more affordable for students, so colleges could increase their tuition without risking a drop in enrollment.

Ms. Long says she is equally intrigued by the question of what makes students successful once they reach college. Her recent work has looked at the effects of factors like remedial courses and class size on student enrollment and persistence. She found that students in remedial courses were more likely to stay in college and earn a bachelor's degree than were students with similar test scores and backgrounds who were not required to take the classes.

At the Graduate School of Education, Ms. Long says, her economist's training complements her colleagues' practical insights. "Economics doesn't work in a vacuum," she says. "The quantitative work complements the qualitative work."

At any one time, she admits, she has 50 potential research topics bumping around in her head, just waiting for the appropriate data set that "allows you to ask the question."

"I always wanted to explore ideas," Ms. Long says, "I just didn't know I was going to make a career out of it."