Susan Dynarski

Susan Marie Dynarski is a professor of public policy, education and economics at the University of Michigan, and co-director of the University's Education Policy Initiative.

While neither of her parents graduated college (her father was a high-school dropout), Dynarski earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University. She then worked as a union organizer for six years, engaged in successful certification campaigns for clerical and technical employees at Harvard University and the University of Minnesota, before returning to Harvard for a Master of Public Policy degree and then earning a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Her husband, Robert (Bob) Brustman, died in March 2017. She is the mother of two children.

Dynarski began her academic career as an assistant and associate professor at the Kennedy School at Harvard University. She been a visiting fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and a visiting faculty member at Princeton University. In addition to her current faculty positions at the University of Michigan, she is affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment, and she is a nonresident senior fellow in the Brookings Institution's Economic Studies Program.

Research

Dynarski's research focuses on the impact of financial aid on college students and their families, improving the design of such programs to achieve the greatest benefit to students (particularly those from low-income families) at the lowest cost to taxpayers, the effectiveness of charter schools, and the impact of price on private school attendance decisions. She is currently an associate editor of American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, and has previously edited Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, The Journal of Labor Economics and Education Finance and Policy. She has been a board member of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management and is president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy.

She has been awarded the "Public Service Matters" award from the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) for her work on college affordability and student debtand the Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators for her research on student aid.

Selected works

Public impact

Dynarski has testified before the US Senate Finance Committee, the US House Ways and Means Committee and the President's Commission on Tax Reform. She advocates for simplifying the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) to help more low-income students in the United States attend college. She has advised the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the White House, the Treasury the Department of Education and the Council of Economic Advisers on potential student aid reforms. She is a contributing columnist for The New York Times. The Chronicle of Higher Education named her one of the "top ten influencers and agitators of 2015," calling her "The Sensible Explainer."