The objective is to provide an opportunity to connect the in-class topics with real-world challenges, to strengthen your skills in writing clearly and concisely about an issue, and to develop your abilities in thinking critically about writing and providing constructive feedback.
You will write a policy brief of 1,000-1,500 words that will include two charts and one table to support your arguments. You can do the data analysis in Excel or in R. You can write the brief in any word processing/publishing/writing software, but it should look professional.
You can work in groups of 2-3
May 02 (Sun) Exercise 05 (pre-work)
May 09 (Sun): Optional rough draft due
May 11 (T): Project showcase
May 16 (Sun): Capstone 3 due
Write a brief about a policy issue in U.S. higher education. This could be something we directly address in class, or something further afield.
Suggested topics:
Audience: Government officials in state and local government, who know a lot about their local contexts, but who may not already be experts in this specific area.
You will need to narrow these down in order for them to be tractable. For example:
Feel free to pick these exact topics, draw from the broader suggestions above, or pursue your own interests.
Up until now, we have used data as our main source. To answer these sorts of questions, though, we'd need to do way more data analysis that would be reasonable! Fortunately, other academics/researchers/non-profits have done lots of analysis for us! Hurrah! But, that means we need to dig into literature.
What does that mean? You will need to cite and interpret outside evidence to answer your questions. Your data/charts may help, but more likely, they will provide the background needed to interpret or motivate your results.
For example, if you consider "What type of borrowers would be most affected by forgiving student debt," you might create charts and figures about average student loan debt among those who attended various types of schools, by various age groups, etc. Then, the literature would speak to the impacts of forgiveness.
A policy brief is a short document that communicates information about a particular challenge and helps policymakers decide what to do. UNC’s Writing Center has a nice summary.
Imagine that you’re an elected official serving on a committee that sets the standards cars must meet to pass a state inspection. You know that this is a complex issue, and you’d like to learn more about existing policies, the effects of emissions on the environment and on public health, the economic consequences of different possible approaches, and more–you want to make an informed decision. But you don’t have time to research all of these issues! You need a policy brief.
A policy brief presents a concise summary of information that can help readers understand, and likely make decisions about, government policies. Policy briefs may give objective summaries of relevant research, suggest possible policy options, or go even further and argue for particular courses of action.
UNC Writing Center, “Policy Briefs”
I’ve posted examples of general policy briefs on Blackboard
There isn’t “correct” policy brief because the needs of each organization differ. Many sample briefs include pictures and stylistic elements (college students, borders, etc.) to create a polished look and follow our CRAP principles. Your briefs should look professional – like something you could actually send to a policymaker. I do recommend paying attention to your formatting and using text boxes, simple charts, and/or tables as appropriate to illustrate your points. These can help you clearly convey your ideas within the word limit and make a nice-looking document.
You will be graded based on five key elements:
There is no "one" way to make a policy brief. However, for the sake of our sanity, include these elements (guideposts are a good idea!):
1. Executive summary: Approximately 1 paragraph. It should summarize your entire brief, and should be something that could stand alone.
2. Statement of problem/background: Motivate the policy challenge, support claims with outside sources
3. Pre-existing policies/evidence: Summarize what policies are being considered, what we know about them.
4. Policy options: Discuss possible policy option(s) specifically. Link to existing evidence of what works when possible.
5. Policy recommendation: Make a clear recommendation
6. References: Include any citations you have. Throughout your brief, you must have at least 4 references besides yoru data, of which you have at least 2 papers from peer-reviewed, academic journal articles. Use in-text citations when relying on other sources to support your statements, especially in statement of problem/background and pre-existing policies/evidence. Use MLA, APA, or Chicago formatting - it does not count toward youword limit.
Your data will likely be integrated into (2) and (3)
Your policy brief text should be 1,000-1,500 words (excluding references, including executive summary). If it's too long, cut it! Submit as a word doc or PDF.
If you’re not sure whether your paper is a peer-reviewed, academic journal article, check out this guide. Resources for finding journal articles includes Google Scholar (which will also include unpublished articles, so be careful!) and EconLit (accessible through the library databases).