About

Thomas R Bailey is a professor of economics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research focuses on the economic and social impacts of educational attainment, particularly examining how low educational achievement affects health, crime, welfare costs, and economic productivity. Bailey has contributed to understanding the long-term costs associated with high school dropout rates, including lifetime earnings losses, increased health care costs, and higher rates of cardiovascular illnesses and other ailments among dropouts. His work emphasizes the importance of increasing high school graduation rates and educational attainment to reduce societal costs and improve economic outcomes. Bailey's research supports the view that investing in education yields significant economic and social benefits, including reductions in crime, health care expenses, and welfare dependency.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Business
• Public relations
• Geography
• Nursing
• Medicine
• Environmental health
• Economics
• Psychology
• Demographic economics
• Gerontology

Selected publications

• Strategies for Postsecondary Students in Developmental Education

  Open MIND · 2024-12-23 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  OA PDFDOI

• Helping Students Navigate the Path to College: What High Schools Can Do

  Open MIND · 2024-12-01 · 28 citations

  articleOpen access
  OA PDFDOI

• Can Access to Community Colleges for Low-Income Adults Be Improved?

  Routledge eBooks · 2023

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Demographic economics
  • Business
  • Economics

  Is it possible to develop a single model of policy change that applies across multiple and diverse states? Under what circumstances might this be possible? In 2002, the Ford Foundation embarked on the Bridges to Opportunity Initiative (Bridges), which seeks to promote state policies that enhance the capacity of community college systems to improve the educational and economic opportunities for low-income adults on a large scale. Working with Colorado, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio, and Washington, the foundation is in its third year of a five-year effort to achieve these goals.

  PublisherDOI

• Rights of Labour

  Routledge eBooks · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science

  The manufacturing labourers of the country are now again, apparently, quietly engaged in the prosecution of their ordinary industrial pursuits; but are they, because quiet, contented with their condition? for, without this feeling predominates among them, there can be no security for society. The punishments of law, or the terrors of military execution, may keep vast masses of discontented men for a while in subjection; but they can only be rendered contented and trustworthy by the exercise of justice and humanity. The people, universally, would then have an interest, direct and personal, in the advance of mechanical improvement. Reduction in the remuneration for labour is the plague-spot of advancing civilization everywhere.

  PublisherDOI

• Global policies on assistive robots for care of the elderly: A scoping review

  International Journal of Healthcare · 2020 · 6 citations

  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  • Public relations

  The elderly are the fastest growing portion of the world population. The majority of elderly want to remain independent as long as possible, with responsibility for their care often falling to family or caregivers. Assistive robots could help maintain independence in the elderly while relieving the burden of care on families and healthcare professionals. This scoping review seeks to examine the type and scope of global policies on the use of robotic technology for care of the elderly in international jurisdictions and to assess how they align with current Canadian policies. This review also seeks to determine current perceptions on the use of robotics in care of the elderly and potential barriers to their use that policy makers could encounter. A comprehensive literature search was conducted for articles related to robotic care of the elderly, perceptions of robotic care of the elderly and related policies, using a global lens. A three-step strategy was used to review and identify articles. The search identified 10 primary and secondary studies and 13 grey literature sources. Studies reported that response to robotic care for the elderly had both positive and negative aspects, and that concerns around privacy and cost were prevalent. Japan and the EU had the most comprehensive policy strategies and proposals. Robotic policy in healthcare is relatively new but will become increasingly important in the coming years. Canada needs to strengthen and anticipate its national policy strategy to ensure it can stay aligned with the fast pace of technological change. Further robust research should continue to explore potential for, and concerns over robotic care.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Humanities and Liberal Arts Education Across America's Colleges: How Much Is There?

  Open MIND · 2019-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This short report provides a systematic accounting of the provision of humanities and liberal arts education at public colleges in the United States, including community colleges. Key findings: Humanities and liberal arts education in America’s colleges is not in decline. Across the nation’s community colleges, the number and share of humanities and liberal arts degrees awarded annually have risen since 2000. Although over the past 15 years the share of bachelor’s degrees awarded at four-year public colleges in these fields has fallen, the absolute number of humanities and liberal arts degrees awarded at two- and four-year public colleges combined has risen. And the numbers and shares of declared humanities and liberal arts majors at two- and four-year public colleges have roughly held steady, accounting for the Great Recession, since 2007. College requirements for humanities and liberal arts coursework are best described as a patchwork. They are based on a complex mix of interwoven college and program requirements, and they allow students considerable flexibility as to the amount of humanities and liberal arts they take in college. All degrees, regardless of subject matter, involve a significant proportion of coursework in humanities and liberal arts. Almost one quarter of coursework for a four-year STEM degree is in these fields. Visual and performing arts is becoming the dominant field within humanities and liberal arts. Community college graduates take as much coursework in visual and performing arts as they do in English or all other humanities and liberal arts courses combined. At four-year colleges, a growing proportion of bachelor’s degrees are in visual and performing arts. This field has supplanted English language and literature as the most popular degree in the humanities and liberal arts. Community college transfer students are an important group of humanities and liberal arts students. They complete as much coursework in these fields as native four-year college students, but most of that coursework is taken before they transfer. It is critical to determine if these students are prepared for humanities and liberal arts coursework at four-year colleges.

  OA PDFDOI

• School to Work: The Integration Principle

  2019-07-09

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter draws on the parallels between the current educational reform movement and contemporary efforts to reform work. It aims to develop the integration model as a conceptual framework for analyzing school reform and its relationship to the changing economy and contemporaneous work reform efforts. The chapter describes the contemporary changes in the economy and in related innovations in the organization of work and shows that model to a discussion of educational equity, access, and the education of minorities. Over the past century, changes in the educational system have often been closely associated with changes in the economy. Institutional integration involves actual relationships between schools and employers. The chapter argues that the logic of economic developments implies a greater integration between education and work. Curricular integration implies a reduction in the differentiation between what is learned in school and on the job and between learning for work and learning for broader educational goals.

  PublisherDOI

• The New Immigrants

  2019-07-09 · 1 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  This chapter examines the conventional stories about urban economic change, showing the intellectual development of these perspectives and providing a more detailed critique. The mismatch thesis occupies the place of honor in the literature on urban poverty. African-Americans and third world immigrants are sharply disparate in the discriminatory barriers that they face, in job orientations, in group resources, and in the ability to mobilize those resources competitively. The changing social structure of New York's traditional ethnic entrepreneurs has opened the door to new immigrant capitalists—who have rushed in to fill the breach. The influx of foreignborn workers has given the comatose manufacturing sector a new lease on life. Immigrants, so the story goes, have been a more pliable labor force, so factory employers have not been obliged to keep wages at parity with national norms. The immigrant network serves as a conduit to lower-cost, reliable labor in the broader community.

  PublisherDOI

• Responding to Divergent Trends: Vocational and Transfer Education at Community Colleges

  Change The Magazine of Higher Learning · 2018-07-04 · 9 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Community colleges have long had multiple missions. The first community college was designed to relieve elite colleges of the burden of educating 18- and 19-year-olds. Thus, it was initially concei...

  PublisherDOI

• Early Momentum Metrics: Why They Matter for College Improvement

  Columbia Academic Commons (Columbia University) · 2017-01-01 · 16 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In this brief, the authors propose three measures of “early momentum” that colleges can use to gauge whether institutional reforms are improving student outcomes: 1. Credit momentum—defined as attempting at least 15 semester credits in the first term or at least 30 semester credits in the first academic year. 2. Gateway momentum—defined as taking and passing pathway-appropriate college-level math and college-level English in the first academic year. 3. Program momentum—defined as taking and passing at least nine semester credits in the student’s field of study in the first academic year. Research is beginning to show that these near-term metrics predict long-term success. In addition, these metrics focus attention on initial conditions at colleges that are particularly important for solidifying the foundation for student success. The authors discuss in detail the evidence supporting these metrics and how using early momentum metrics can help colleges reframe and focus reform efforts in positive ways.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Davis Jenkins

  Columbia University

  32 shared

• Maurício L. Barreto

  25 shared

• Leonor Maria Pacheco Santos

  Universidade de Brasília

  25 shared

• V. Andreozzi

  25 shared

• Ana Marlúcia Oliveira Assis

  25 shared

• Cláudio J. Struchiner

  Fundação Getulio Vargas

  25 shared

• Flávio Fonseca Nobre

  Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

  25 shared

• Peter Berg

  13 shared

Education

• B.A., Economics

  Harvard University

• Ph.D., Economics

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology