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New Center Applies Cost-Benefit Analysis to Education Policies

Reducing the number of students in a classroom is a popular strategy for raising test scores, and it’s one that has some evidence of success. But states trying out the idea have learned the hard way that the price tag can be hefty, leaving some policymakers to wonder, “Was it really worth the expense?”

That’s where the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education , at Teachers College, Columbia University, comes in.

Launched last year by a pair of economists, the center specializes in calculating and comparing the long- and short-term costs—and probable payoffs—of different educational strategies that promise...