Bridget Terry Long

Bridget Long is the Saris Professor of Education and Economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. A member of the HGSE faculty since 2000, Long served as dean of HGSE from 2018 to 2024. During that time, Long led the school through the implementation of their redesigned master’s program, the pivot to remote education during AY20-21, and the introduction of a new online master’s degree, along with expanding HGSE’s external engagement and partnerships. She served as academic dean from 2013 to 2017, and the faculty director of the Ed.D. and Ph.D. programs from 2010 to 2013.

Long is an economist whose work focuses on improving educational opportunity and student success. Her studies have provided evidence on the effectiveness of financial aid policies, postsecondary remedial education, and support programs on educational attainment. Several projects also examine the effects of providing information and assistance with college processes on the likelihood that students engage in important educational activities. As part of this line of research, she and co-authors have developed a series of interventions and worked with multiple schools and other organizations to evaluate the impact of these initiatives on behaviors such as saving for college, the completion of financial aid forms, and persistence in higher education. Long’s other research projects examine the role of instructor quality, class size, and support programs on educational attainment. 

Long is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Education and the International Academy of Education. She is the chair of Board of Directors for MDRC, a nonprofit social policy research organization and a member of the Board for the Red Sox Foundation. During the Obama administration, she served as chair of National Board for Education Sciences, the advisory panel of the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education. Long has been awarded the Peter H. Rossi Award for Contributions to the Theory or Practice of Program Evaluation from APPAM, the Spencer Foundation Mentor Award, and the Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award for excellence in research and published works on student financial assistance.

Long earned her Ph.D. and M.A. from the Harvard University Department of Economics and her A.B. from Princeton University in Economics with a Certificate in Afro-American Studies. She has testified numerous times before U.S. Senate Committees and state governmental bodies, and she was a Visiting Fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. She has won numerous major research grants, including awards from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the National Science Foundation (NSF).