Our Team

Judith Scott-Clayton is currently on leave from the PEER Project and Columbia University, where she is a Professor of Economics and Education at Teachers College, in the Department of Education Policy and Social Analysis (EPSA), where she directs the Economics & Education Program and teaches courses on the economics of education, labor economics and causal inference. She is also a Faculty Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Senior Research Scholar at the Community College Research Center (CCRC). Scott-Clayton’s research lies at the intersection of labor economics and higher education policy, with a particular focus on financial aid, community colleges, and the outcomes of students after college, including labor market trajectories and patterns of student loan default.

Scott-Clayton’s work crosses disciplinary boundaries and has been published in economics, education, and policy journals including the Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Education Finance and Policy, and Economics of Education Review. Her work has been covered by national media including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, PBS, NPR, and CNN. She has written for the Brookings Institution's Evidence Speaks series, as well as for the New York Times’ Economix and Upshot blogs. Scott-Clayton actively participates in higher education policy discussions at the state and federal level, including testifying four times (most recently in 2020) to the U.S. Senate as an expert on financial aid research and policy.

Scott-Clayton holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University.