Jens Ludwig
Faculty Co-Director
Connect
Expertise

Jens Ludwig is the Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, Pritzker Director of the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab, and co-director of the Education Lab. He helped found the Crime Lab and Education Lab to work closely with the public sector to solve pressing social problems. These partnerships have led to important policy changes in cities around the country, including Chicago and New York, and have been featured in national news outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, PBS News Hour, and National Public Radio, and the scientific basis for these policies have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals like the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Science, and Nature. In 2012 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science.

Overcoming Pandemic-Induced Learning Loss
The Education Lab’s faculty co-directors, Dr. Jens Ludwig, professor at the University of Chicago, and Dr. Jon Guryan, professor at Northwestern University, published a paper commissioned by the Aspen Economic Strategy Group for its 2023 policy volume.

Not Too Late: Improving Academic Outcomes Among Adolescents
Read our academic paper on the early Saga studies published in the American Economic Review.
Improving Academic Outcomes for Disadvantaged Students: Scaling Up Individualized Tutoring
Education Lab Faculty Co-Directors Jon Guryan and Jens Ludwig and Executive Director Rosesanna Ander penned this The Hamilton Project policy proposal.

Not Too Late: Improving Academic Outcomes for Disadvantaged Youth
Read the Northwestern University Institute for Policy Research working paper on intensive individualized academic instruction as a strategy for improving academic outcomes of youth who need additional academic support.
Personalized Learning Initiative
The Personalized Learning Initiative (PLI) is a moonshot to overcome pandemic learning loss and aims to bring high-dosage tutoring to students nationwide.

Personalized Learning Initiative: Tutor Corps Evaluation
The University of Chicago Education Lab is partnering with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to scale personalized tutoring in the wake of the pandemic.

Saga Scale-Up
In partnership with Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE), and Saga Education, the Education Lab worked to scale up a promising high-dosage tutoring model that improves academic outcomes.

Saga Match
The Education Lab, in partnership with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Saga Education, evaluated a promising high-dosage math tutoring model to improve students’ math achievement.

Latest Updates
A Rose-Colored Recovery: Study Says Parents Don’t Grasp Extent of COVID’s Academic Damage
The 74’s Linda Jacobson covered a recent event on pandemic-era learning loss featuring Education Lab faculty co-director Jens Ludwig, who remarked during the panel, “This is the biggest problem facing America.”

Pandemic learning loss could have long-term economic harms
K-12 Dive’s Kara Arundel reflects on a recent Aspen Economic Strategy Group event where Jens Ludwig, faculty co-director of the University of Chicago’s Education Lab, warned that pandemic era learning loss “is the biggest problem facing America that nobody’s talking about.”


Overcoming Pandemic Learning Loss: Bringing High-Dosage Tutoring to Students Nationwide
The Aspen Economic Strategy Group (AESG) hosted an event related to the publication of a new paper by the Education Lab’s faculty co-directors, Dr. Jens Ludwig and Dr. Jon Guryan, titled “Overcoming Pandemic-Induced Learning Loss.”

