Education Module

This module simulates educational attainment and student status transitions for persons in the synthetic population. It uses an estimated model to determine which students drop out, advances students through grades and degrees, and maintains proportions of high school and GED graduates. The module updates education years and student status in the persons table, and provides orca columns for education groupings.

Key features:

  • Applies a logit model to determine which students stop attending school.

  • Advances students through grades, high school, and college based on model predictions and observed proportions.

  • Maintains realistic proportions of high school graduates and GED recipients.

  • Updates edu (education years/level) and student status in place.

  • Provides orca columns for education groupings and proportions.

Caveats:

  • Only persons older than 15 and currently students are considered for dropout modeling.

  • Proportions for transitions (e.g., GED vs. diploma) are maintained using observed data.

  • Some transitions use random assignment based on empirical proportions.

  • Most errors are silently handled; users should ensure input data is consistent.

  • Designed for use as-is; users should not override orca columns or internal logic.

Module function

This module does not have configuration options

demos.models.education.education(persons, edu_highschool_proportion, edu_highschool_grads_proportion, year)[source]

Simulate educational attainment and student status transitions.

This step applies the education model to eligible persons (age > 15 and currently students) to determine who drops out. It advances students through grades and degrees, maintains proportions of high school and GED graduates, and updates the persons table in place.

Parameters:

  • persons (orca.Table) – The persons table containing individual-level attributes.

  • edu_highschool_proportion (pandas.Series) – Proportion of students in 11th and 12th grade.

  • edu_highschool_grads_proportion (pandas.Series) – Proportion of students with GED or high school diploma.

  • year (int) – The current simulation year.

Return type:

None

Notes

  • Modifies persons.edu and persons.student in place.

  • Only persons older than 15 and currently students are considered for dropout modeling.

  • Proportions for transitions (e.g., GED vs. diploma) are maintained using observed data.

  • Some transitions use random assignment based on empirical proportions.