The rising cost of attending four-year colleges and universities concerns students and parents across the nation, calling for an explanation and possible educational alternatives. One such alternative may be trade schools, which offer a shorter path from secondary education to the workforce. In deciding which post-graduation path to pursue, students (and their parents) may be interested in the rate of return to each of these options. Many estimates have arisen calculating the rate of return to a four-year degree, but comparatively little has been done for trade schools and short-term professional programs. This study is a preliminary attempt to fill this gap. I focus on beauty schools as a specified form of trade school, and compare tuition and early-career salaries from twenty-three beauty schools in the state of Washington to pre-calculated Washington averages for four-year universities. If the labor economy is operating at maximum efficiency, the rate of return for trade schools should be equal to that of four-year universities, i.e. the same benefit to cost ratio. An efficient labor market that includes beauty schools at a higher rate of return than four-year universities could indicate an occurence of social stigma, encouraging unprepared high school students into a longer program than would be economically efficient. The expected result would be an increase in students capitalizing on the program with the higher rate of return. While preliminary results suggest a higher rate of return for four-year programs, I plan to continue the study with expanded data sets.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is when companies make an effort to improve society through their business practices. Corporate Social Responsibility is a growing topic and has been researched extensively and implemented mostly among large corporations, garnering the attention of stakeholders, sponsors, investors, and media. Researchers have conducted meta-analysis on the effects of CSR on financial performance of companies and found that though implementing CSR activities can result in an expense for the company, the overall benefits of CSR, such as increases in public support, employee satisfaction, investor’s involvement, and community engagement, far outweigh the cost. However, little is known on the impact of the size of a company and the effects of CSR and financial performance. The goal of this research is to identify, based on the size of a company, the effects of CSR on financial performance and examine whether CSR results in financial benefits. Data will be extracted from three large, three medium, and two small profit companies and analyzed following existing protocols and procedures for conducting a systematic review. For each company, I will examine its CSR report and identify studies that used more than two outcome measures (e.g., environmental sustainability, human right advocacy, empowering employees, etc.) of CSR to determine financial performance. The significance of my research is its potential to provide context-specific findings that could inform managers from small to large companies how engaging in CSR activities may be beneficial.