The Labor Market Value of Community College Bachelor’s Degrees: Initial Evidence from a Resume Audit Study in Early Childhood Education / Riley K. Acton, Camila Morales, Julia A. Turner, Lois Miller, Kalena Cortes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Acton, Riley K.

Contributor:

Morales, Camila.

Turner, Julia A.

Miller, Lois.

Cortes, Kalena.

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w35404.

NBER working paper series no. w35404

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2026.

Summary:

Community colleges are more financially, academically, and geographically accessible than four-year colleges. Despite most community college students intending to earn a bachelor's degree, few transfer to a four-year institution and even fewer earn bachelor's degrees, leading policymakers to explore alternative strategies for increasing postsecondary access and success. Community College Baccalaureate (CCB) programs have emerged as one such pathway, allowing community colleges to confer bachelor's degrees directly. However, little is known about how employers value these credentials in the labor market. To address this question, we conduct the first resume audit study of CCB degrees, submitting fictitious applications to real job vacancies while experimentally varying applicants' educational credentials, degree-granting institutions, and demographic signals. In this pilot study, we focus on the early childhood education (ECE) labor market, a rapidly growing CCB field characterized by labor shortages and increasing educational requirements. We find that CCB degrees are viewed comparably to both traditional bachelor's degrees and associate degrees by employers in this setting, with relatively precise, statistically indistinguishable rates interview requests across degree types. A text analysis of employer callback messages reveals little evidence that employers communicate differently with CCB applicants, while a net-price simulation suggests that sticker-price comparisons substantially overstate the affordability advantage of CCB programs. Together, these findings provide new evidence on the labor market value and affordability of CCB degrees and motivate a larger audit (launched summer 2026) across more fields of study and locations.

Notes:

July 2026.

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