Description of Research Expertise

Areas of Expertise

Access, choice, and equity in higher education
College finance and affordability
Federal and state involvement in pre-college and college education

Professional Biography

Dr. Perna joined the faculty as associate professor in 2005 and was promoted to full professor in 2010. Prior to her appointment at Penn GSE, she served on the faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park; as a research scientist and director of data analysis, as well as acting director, at the Frederick Patterson Research Institute of the United Negro College Fund; and as director of institutional research at the University of Dallas.

Her research has been supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Science, Lumina Foundation for Education, American Educational Research Association, and Association for Institutional Research. She serves as a member of the technical review group for the GEAR UP follow-up evaluation and the Upward Bound and Student Support Services Innovative Practices Study, the technical review panels for the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, the Beginning Postsecondary Student Survey, and the Baccalaureate and Beyond Study, the external advisory committee for the National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs, the research advisory board for the Thurgood Marshall Fund, the advisory board for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education GEAR UP Advisory Committee, the Board of Directors of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, and Lumina Foundation for Education’s Research Advisory Committee.

In addition, she serves or has served on the editorial boards of the American Education Research Journal, Educational Researcher, Academe, Journal of Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, Journal of Women in Higher Education, and Journal of the Professoriate, and is a consulting editor for Research in Higher Education. In 2003, the Association for the Study of Higher Education awarded her the Promising Scholar/Early Career Achievement Award. She has also served on the Board of Directors for the Association for the Study of Higher Education and the Division J Council of the American Educational Research Association. She was elected to serve a three-year term as Vice President of Division J of the American Educational Research Association beginning April 2010. In 2010 she was awarded the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching from Penn.

Research Interests and Current Projects

Gaps in educational attainment by race/ethnicity and family income persist despite substantial annual investments by federal and state governments, colleges and universities, school districts, philanthropic organizations, and other entities in policies and programs that are designed to close these gaps. The central focus of Dr. Perna’s scholarship is to understand the forces that limit educational attainment, despite these considerable efforts, and the ways to promote educational attainment, particularly for students from traditionally underrepresented groups. Current scholarship draws on economic and sociological frameworks and uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to understand how public policies and institutional practices influence students’ opportunity to enroll and succeed in college, taking into account the contexts in which students are embedded.