Paco Martorell is a Professor in the UC Davis School of
Education. Martorell completed his PhD in economics at UC
Berkeley.
Prior to moving to UC Davis, he was an Economist at the RAND
Corporation and was a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate
School since 2006. He has broad research interests in both higher
education and K-12 policy. Current projects cover areas including
developmental education in colleges, the effects of grade
retention, the returns to for-profit colleges, the impacts of
school facility investments, and community college tuition
subsidies. He also has conducted research on health care
including studies examining the economic costs of dementia as
well as research on the economic and educational consequences of
military service.
In recent years, for-profit colleges have seen sharp increases in
enrollment despite public community colleges being much cheaper.
In a recent study,[1] we sent almost 9,000 fictitious resumes of
young job applicants who recently completed their schooling to
online job postings in seven major U.S. cities across six
occupational categories to track employer callback rates. We find
no evidence that employers prefer applicants with resumes listing
a for-profit college relative to those whose resumes list either
a public community college or no college at all.
DAVIS, Calif. — Center for Poverty Research faculty
affiliates in education and economics have been awarded nearly $5
million to find out how well the state prepares K-12 students for
college and careers.
