Chris Weiland speaks with The74 about new research that highlights overlooked benefits of preschool

Professor Chris Weiland tells The74 that a working paper published in 2024 and updated in 2025 looks at how universal pre-K (UPK) might impact parents’ earnings, thus expanding our understanding of the many benefits preschool provides. The paper, Parents’ Earnings and the Returns to Universal Pre-Kindergarten, is recommended by Weiland as notable research from the past year that is helping to shape the early care and early education field. The paper is authored by John Eric Humphries, faculty research fellow at Yale University’s Department of Economics; Christopher Neilson, research associate at Yale University; Xiaoyang Ye, Brown University; and Seth D. Zimmerman, research associate at Yale School of Management.

The74 reports that the body of early education research about how preschool affects children often measures child outcomes such as kindergarten readiness, standardized test scores or later graduation rates. However, Weiland notes, she and researchers in her field have long suspected these indicators don’t paint the full picture of preschool’s effects. The working paper is part of a new wave of research that explores a broader set of outcomes. The study found that New Haven’s UPK program raised parents’ earnings by nearly 22% during pre-kindergarten, with gains persisting for at least six years, concluding that the returns to UPK investment are “high.”

As one of the first studies looking at “earnings data in modern-day pre-K studies,” says Weiland, it offers more evidence that the field is “likely underestimating the return on investment early education programs have.” The74 also linked to a 2025 working paper by Weiland, Marsal PhD candidate Tiffany Wu, and colleagues that showed impacts of Boston's Pre-K program on children's accelerated coursework in middle school and subsequent schooling environments, which are also outcomes not typically examined in recent studies.