Professional Biography
Walter G. Ecton is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Education Policy Division at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. Professor Ecton’s research lies at the intersections between high school, higher education, and the workforce, and the pathways students take as they navigate those sectors. His work primarily focuses on students who take nontraditional pathways through education, with particular focuses on high school students in career and technical education, students who attend college, and students who return to education later in life.
Professor Ecton’s research uses large administrative datasets at the state and federal levels to explore educational and labor market outcomes from students’ participation in education programs. He has been published in AERA Open, Oxford Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance, Journal of Applied Research in the Community College, and Community College Review, and presents research regularly at the Association for Education Finance and Policy, the Association for Public Policy and Management, the Association for the Study of Higher Education, and the Association for Career and Technical Education Research. In 2020, his paper with Dr. Shaun Dougherty, “Examining Heterogeneity in the Trajectories of Career and Technical Students,” was awarded best paper by the Association for Career and Technical Education Research.
Professor Ecton was selected as a 2021-2022 Emerging Education Policy Scholar by the Fordham Institute and American Enterprise Institute. He was a 2020 UCEA David L. Clark Scholar with the American Education Research Association, and a 2019 ECMC Foundation Fellow. Prior to his doctoral work, Professor Ecton taught high school social studies at Booker T. Washington High School in the Atlanta Public School system and served as Associate Director of New Business Development at the Education Advisory Board (EAB), a DC-based higher education technology and consulting firm.
Professor Ecton’s research uses econometric techniques to examine educational and workforce outcomes for students who participate in a wide range of educational experiences. He is especially interested in examining outcomes for students who have long been at the margins of access to educational opportunity.
Professor Ecton’s work currently focuses primarily on Career and Technical Education (traditionally referred to as vocational education). Projects include an examination of differences in the trajectories of students who take courses in technical fields as different as manufacturing, construction, IT, and healthcare; analyses about the extent to which Career and Technical Education students lose opportunities to engage with college preparatory courses; an assessment of gender gaps in the returns to technical education; and a study of how and why students choose to attend technical high schools in Massachusetts.
Professor Ecton is also currently working on several projects in Tennessee including an examination of the impact of students working while enrolled in college, and an assessment of how successfully colleges adapt to changes in their local economy by shifting their program offerings and enrollment strategies. Across all his projects, Professor Ecton aims to inform policymakers in ways that allow them to best prepare their students for success in their careers post-education.
