Thanks to @dougwebberecon for nominating me to #TweetABlackEconomistsPaper. I want to feature my friend @Rodprime at UT-Dallas. Rodney has a lot of neat work on higher education finance. I want to tweet about two papers:

First, is his paper on tuition deregulation in AEJ:EP with @kevin_stange. Rodney uses a change in Texas law that allows universities to set their own tuition rates and employ differential tuition in high income subjects like business. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20170306

Rodney finds that while most schools increased their "sticker price" tuition, this deregulation allowed schools to offer steeper discounts to lower income students via merit aid. This flexibility caused more low-income students to choose higher earning majors.

Another of my favorite papers by @Rodprime is his work on Promise Scholarships in Econ of Ed Review. Rodney examines the effect of Kalamzoo Promise on college choices. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775710000634

In this paper, @Rodprime finds that Kalamazoo promise boosted college attendance; particularly for low income students. Promise scholarships made it possible for many to attend prestigious state flagship universities that probably couldn't otherwise.

On top of @Rodprime great scholarship. He is a fantastic mentor and friend who cares deeply about his students and junior scholars. The first time I met Rodney, I told him about a new paper I was working on. Rodney told me I should submit it to the @nberpubs.

I had no idea how to to that (Call for Papers goes to fellows and those on the mailing list). Out of the blue, a few weeks later, I got an email from Rodney with the link and a note of encouragement.

Despite the fact that Rodney went to Georgia Tech...and I endure tauntings on social media during "Good old fashioned hate" week (UGA vs GT football). Rodney is one of those folks that has helped me along my career path for no reason other than his kindness and generosity.

I want to nominate @kevin_stange, @rkelchen, @JeffDenning, and @tyleransom to also #TweetABlackEconomistsPaper (if you haven't already since I have been limiting my Twitter time lately).