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Bachelor’s Degree Completion Across State Contexts: Does the Distribution of Enrollments Make a Difference?

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Abstract

Growing accountability pressures, accompanied by a lack of readily accessible measures of institutional performance, have led to an increasing focus on graduation rates. Although previous research has illuminated myriad factors influencing students’ likelihood of educational success, it has not paid adequate attention to how state contexts may shape student outcomes. I build on the small but growing body of research exploring the role of state characteristics in facilitating student success in higher education. Controlling for a range of state and individual attributes, I examine how one aspect of the state context––the distribution of enrollments in 2 vs. 4-year public institutions––is related to bachelor’s degree attainment of students attending public 4-year colleges and universities. The results suggest that the larger the proportion of students attending community colleges in a state, the higher the probability of bachelor’s degree attainment at public 4-year institutions. This appears to be a product of student sorting: the presence of community colleges facilitates sorting of students into higher education in a way that is associated with higher degree completion at public 4-year institutions. These findings have important implications for research on student outcomes and policies aimed at evaluating the performance of public 4-year institutions.

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Notes

  1. Different data sources produce similar six-year bachelor’s degree completion rates, which at public 4-year institutions are estimated at approximately 53% (The Chronicle of Higher Education 2008; see also NCES 2003a). Considering more traditional students and longer time frames produces higher graduation rates; yet even then, many students leave higher education without a degree in hand.

  2. The results are not substantively altered if both enrollments and degrees are coded in the same year.

  3. Alaska is the outlier in the bottom left portion of the graph. If removed, the correlation still remains strong and significant, r = 0.696, p < 0.05. Moreover, a strong positive correlation between the size of the community college sector and 4-year retention and graduation is reported in Measuring Up (author’s calculations). The correlations are slightly weaker in Measuring Up because their state estimates are based on aggregating institutional graduation rates which have more variability and because they include both public and private 4-year institutions.

  4. I am not aware of any published work testing this hypothesis.

  5. Author’s calculations based on data from California and Florida (both of which enroll a large proportion of public higher education students in community colleges) suggest that those states do not have notably higher transfer rates than the national average reported in the Transfer Assembly Project (see Cohen 1994,1996).

  6. Detailed explanation of the NELS sample and procedures can be found in the Base-Year to Fourth Follow-Up User’s Manual (NCES 2002). Also, for explanation and descriptive statistics of the PETS sample, see NCES (2003b) report titled Postsecondary Attainment, Attendance, Curriculum, and Performance.

  7. The loss of cases due to missing data on independent variables is small. Using mean substitution (e.g., Cohen and Cohen 1975) or multiple imputation procedures (e.g. Allison 2002) does not substantively alter the reported results.

  8. Using an alternative definition, one denoting a consolidated governing board without a distinction regarding 2 vs. 4-year institutions, does not substantively alter the reported results.

  9. Although the authors do not provide coefficients and standard errors to statistically test these differences, the odds ratios for entry into 4-year and 2-year public institutions are virtually identical. Odds ratios for state appropriations are 1.047 for entry into public 2-year and 1.046 for entry into public 4-year institutions. Similarly, odds ratios for need-based financial aid are 1.188 for entry into public 2-year and 1.162 for entry into public 4-year institutions (Perna and Titus 2004; Table 1; similar patterns are reported in Table 3).

  10. Coefficients for individual-level factors are as expected. However, it is important to keep in mind that the first set of coefficients (from female to expecting a bachelor’s degree) needs to be interpreted in combination with Table 1 because the sorting process was estimated with these individual-level characteristics in the model.

  11. Part of the explanation for a lack of significant findings in Model 2 may be attributed to relatively large standard errors resulting from a reduced sample size. However, even if variables are entered one at the time or in blocks (e.g., financial context, articulation, governance, other controls), none of the state-level characteristics are statistically significant.

  12. The most recent version of the Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) dataset includes representative samples of students in 12 states, highlighting the potential and challenges associated with collecting state representative samples.

  13. In the meantime, careful studies of individual states over time can provide useful insights. However, individual state analyses cannot be generalized, as each state is characterized by a unique set of characteristics, necessitating the development of a national dataset including many if not all states.

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400766, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA

    Josipa Roksa

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Correspondence to Josipa Roksa.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 3 Descriptive statistics (weighted) and definitions of variables used in bachelor’s degree attainment analyses (N = 2,789)
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Roksa, J. Bachelor’s Degree Completion Across State Contexts: Does the Distribution of Enrollments Make a Difference?. Res High Educ 51, 1–20 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-009-9146-7

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