The Effects of K-12 Computer Science Education Policies on Postsecondary CS Participation

• In Event: Policies and Interventions for Student Persistence in STEM Fields

Abstract

Introduction/Background: Learning computer science (CS) is often believed to help students acquire career opportunities or valuable skills, like computational thinking or knowledge of cybersecurity. Additionally, advocates of CS education argue that economic growth requires more workers with CS-related skills. Consequently, states have increasingly adopted policies to promote CS education in K-12 schools, motivated in part by the goal of expanding postsecondary CS participation. These efforts have coalesced around nine policies tracked and promoted by the Code.org Advocacy Coalition, including establishing CS content standards, requiring schools to offer CS, and allowing CS to count toward graduation or college admission requirements. While CS participation has grown at both the K-12 and postsecondary levels, no rigorous evidence exists on whether these state policies have driven that growth. 

Purpose/Research Questions: We ask two questions: (1) To what extent do state CS education policies affect student graduation from CS and CS-related undergraduate majors? (2) To what extent do these policies change the rate of CS teacher production? These questions align squarely with the 2026 conference theme, “Fifty States, Fifty Systems: State Policy Variations and Impacts,” as our study directly leverages the variation in policy across all 50 states to answer them. 

Methods: We collect novel longitudinal data on the adoption and implementation dates of nine CS education policies across all 50 states and DC from 2000 to 2022, validated through legislative histories and verification by state-level stakeholders. We then use event study difference-in-differences methods to estimate the causal effects of each policy on two postsecondary outcomes drawn from federal data: undergraduate CS and CS-related degree completion (from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, IPEDS) and CS teacher certification (from Title II reports from the U.S. Department of Education). We also employ the Borusyak et al. (2024) estimator for staggered treatment as a robustness check. 

Results/Findings: We find little evidence that most policies meaningfully affect either outcome. Seven of the nine policies – including requiring high schools to offer CS and allowing CS to count toward graduation or college admission requirements – show no effects on postsecondary CS participation even a decade after adoption. Two possible exceptions emerge: state funding for CS teacher professional development is associated with increased CS degree production, and statewide CS education plans show marginally significant positive effects, possibly reflecting the broader commitment to CS education that such plans signal. Effects on CS teacher production are null across all policies. Results are robust to alternative specifications, including models accounting for correlated policy adoption. 

Conclusion/Implications: Our results suggest that state-level CS education policies adopted to date are generally too light-touch to drive postsecondary outcomes, and have largely followed – rather than caused – rising interest in CS. Policymakers seeking to expand participation in CS in higher education may need more intensive or better coordinated strategies, such as sustained investment in CS teacher development or comprehensive state plans that bundle multiple policy levers. These findings carry broader lessons for state-level education policy design in other content areas of growing interest.

Authors

• Paul Bruno, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author

• Tuan D Nguyen, University of Missouri-Columbia
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Haeryun Kim, University of Illinois
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Chanh Bao Lam, Kansas State University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author