The Short- and Long-Term Impacts of Expanding Public Education for Disabled Students

TL;DR

This study examines the extensive impacts of U.S. public education mandates for disabled students from 1949 to 1980, showing significant long-term benefits in education, employment, and family outcomes.

Contribution

It provides new empirical evidence on the broad, long-term effects of expanding educational access for disabled students using historical data and difference-in-difference analysis.

Findings

Increased services and preschool enrollments for disabled students.

Disabled individuals experienced more education and employment in adulthood.

Positive spillovers for non-disabled individuals and economic benefits for society.

Abstract

Between 1949 and 1980, every U.S. state mandated public schools to provide educational services for disabled students. This is one of the largest education reforms in U.S. history, but little is known about its impacts. Given scarce data in this period, I compile survey and administrative datasets and set up a difference-in-difference design using variation in the mandates' timing. I show that the mandates increased both services for disabled students and preschool enrollments. In adulthood, disabled individuals below school age at a mandate's implementation became about 20% less likely to have no education, attained up to 0.23 more years of education, and were more likely to have worked. Although this policy could have taken away resources from non-disabled students, in fact, education and employment also increased for non-disabled individuals. These effects align with evidence that the mandates increased spending per student by up to 15%. Families were also impacted: the mandates increased employment among mothers of disabled children and the probability that disabled individuals became household heads. Over the long term, the mandates paid for themselves by generating government revenues in excess of their cost. These results provide new evidence on the large, broad impacts of expanding access to education for disabled students.