Susan Dynarski

Associate Professor of Public Policy
Kennedy School
Office Address
-R
Mailing Address
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Mailbox 19
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Contact
Email: Susan_Dynarski@ksg.harvard.edu
Susan Dynarski

Profile

Susan Dynarski, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, studies and teaches the economics of education and tax policy. She has a special interest in the interaction of inequality and education. She has been a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research since 1999 and a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University.

Professor Dynarski has studied the impact of grants and loans on college attendance; the impact of state policy on college completion rates; and the distributional aspects of college savings incentives. Her current research focuses on the effect of academic preparation on college success, gender gaps in education outcomes and simplification of the federal student aid system. She has testified on her research to the United States Senate and the President's Commission on Tax Reform.

Professor Dynarski lives in Somerville with her husband and two children, just a few blocks from her alma mater, St. Catherine's Elementary. She has also attended Harvard University (A.B. in Social Studies and Master's in Public Policy) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D. in economics).

Courses

Not Offered

  • HLE-227 The Economics of Education

Media Expertise

Susan Dynarski welcomes media inquiries on the following subjects:

Additional experts may be found by clicking on each subject listed. You may contact faculty directly or if you need assistance contact the Communications Office at 617-495-1115.

Research

Research for a complete list of faculty citations from 2001 - present, please visit the Harvard Kennedy School Research Report Online.

Selected Publication Citations:

  • Academic Journals
    • Dynarski, Susan, and Judith Scott-Clayton. "The Cost of Complexity in Federal Student Aid: Lessons from Optimal Tax Theory and Behavioral Economics." National Tax Journal 59.2 (June 2006): 319-356.
    • Dynarski, Susan. "Who Benefits from the College Savings Incentives? Income, Educational Expectations and the Value of the 529 and Coverdell." National Tax Journal (June 2004).
    • Dynarski, Susan. "Does Aid Matter? Measuring the Effect of Student Aid on College Attendance and Completion." American Economic Review 93.1 (March 2003): 279-288.
    • Dynarski, Susan. "The Behavioral and Distributional Implications of Subsidies for College." American Economic Review 92.2 (May 2002): 279-285.
  • Book Chapters
    • Dynarski, Susan. "The New Merit Aid." College Choices: The Economics of Where to Go, When to Go, and How to Pay for It. Ed. Caroline Hoxby. University of Chicago Press, 2004.
    • Dynarski, Susan. "Tax Policy and Education Policy: Coordination or Collision?" Tax Policy and the Economy. Ed. James M. Poterba. MIT Press, 2004.
  • Op-Eds
    • Dynarski, Susan. "Focus Tax Incentives on the Students Who Need Them." Chronicle of Higher Education, August 20, 2007.
  • Research Papers/Reports
    • Dynarski, Susan, and Judith Scott-Clayton. "College Grants on a Postcard: A Proposal for Simple and Predictable Federal Student Aid." Hamilton Project Discussion Paper 2007-01; KSG Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP07-014, March 2007.