Brad Hershbein’s fields of interest focus on labor economics, economics of the family, and economics of education. He has examined how employers use the selectivity of school and GPA to infer the productivity of new college graduates, how high school graduates fare in the labor market after graduating in a recession, and how access to the birth control pill allowed women to invest in their education and careers. More recently, he has investigated how and why student loan debt has been growing, and for which students, and possible ways to provide better information to students about the costs and benefits of attending different colleges and programs. His current research analyzes how the Kalamazoo Promise, a universal, place-based scholarship, affects the college-going decisions of students; the degree to which employers raise educational requirements in job postings when the labor market is weak; and the role of expanding pre-K programs in raising student achievement.