Do Community Colleges provide a Viable Pathway to a Baccalaureate Degree? / Bridget Terry Long, Michal Kurlaender.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Long, Bridget Terry.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Kurlaender, Michal.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w14367.

NBER working paper series no. w14367

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2008.

Summary:

Community colleges have become an important entryway for students intending to complete a baccalaureate degree. However, many question the viability of the transfer function and wonder whether students suffer a penalty for starting at a two-year institution. This paper examines how the outcomes of community college entrants compare to similar students who initially entered four-year institutions within the Ohio public higher education system. Using a detailed dataset, we track outcomes for nine years and employ multiple strategies to deal with selection issues: propensity score matching and instrumental variables. The results suggest that straightforward estimates are significantly biased, but even after accounting for selection, students who initially begin at a community college were 14.5 percent less likely to complete a bachelor's degree within nine years.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2008.