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2-Year or Not 2-Year? The Impact of Starting at Community College on Bachelor’s Degree Attainment

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Abstract

As college tuition rises nationwide, policy efforts to reduce these costs are increasingly focused at the 2-year level. However, it is not fully known whether increased access to college increases degree attainment. Compared to observationally equivalent peers who enroll in 4-year institutions, 2-year enrollees may face a decreased likelihood of BA receipt. Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study, this paper examines the long-term academic outcomes for full-time, bachelor’s degree intending students who initially enroll at public 2-year institutions. I examine the impact of initial community college enrollment on degree attainment, credit accumulation, and student loan debt using multiple identification strategies. I utilize a series of linear probability models (LPM) and an instrumental variable (IV) approach that exploits variation in the cost of and proximity to 2- and 4-year institutions. These strategies estimate the impact of initial community college enrollment by comparing identical students regarding demographics and academic ability, in which one student enrolls in a 2-year school and another in a 4-year institution. I find that initial 2-year enrollment reduces the likelihood of bachelor's degree attainment by 14 (LPM) to 35 (IV) percentage points but reduces student loan accrual by nearly $7500. Understanding the impact of initial 2-year enrollment is especially important as there is increased pressure on community colleges to play a role in providing pathways to BA receipt. Understanding the effect of community college enrollment can help secondary and postsecondary institutions and policymakers better provide pathways to baccalaureate attainment.

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Notes

  1. These costs are reported in 2019 dollars.

  2. Two-year entrants are more likely to be from low-income households, work full-time, and take remedial coursework in college than 4-year entrants (Chen, 2016; Ma & Baum, 2016).

  3. These statistics come from students who began college in 2015.

  4. Transfers are defined as initial 2-year enrollees that transfer to a 4-year school.

  5. They use the NLSY class of 1972, the High School & Beyond (HSB), and the Beginning Postsecondary Study (BPS).

  6. This excludes 2890 students who do not graduate on time, 2160 students who do not enroll in college, and 1,230 students who do not provide information on where they enroll.

  7. This excludes 970 students who do not expect to earn a 4-year degree and 470 students who enroll in part-time study.

  8. This excludes 540 students who enroll in less than 2-year schools or private-for-profit institutions.

  9. I also excluded 50 students living in Washington, D.C., because D.C. has no community colleges and 70 students with a missing NCESID code (which is required to map students to their high school to calculate distances to colleges).

  10. Nine schools did not provide latitude and longitude coordinates or school addresses; for these instances, I used the city's latitude and longitude.

  11. This excludes private-for-profit institutions. I also exclude institutions whose mailing and physical locations are outside state lines (for example, an online institution whose listed address is for its headquarters in another state).

  12. I report results where I use distance to the nearest public 4-year institution in Appendix Table 5.

  13. 2,010 students of the original 16,197 students are assigned state-average in-district costs.

  14. I calculate the distance from high school h to college k in miles using the latitude and longitude of the high school and college.

  15. The results do not vary significantly when I use a different weighting method where the power value equals 0.50.

  16. Unemployment rates come from 2003–the student’s senior year of high school.

  17. I report results for quadratic values of distance measures to investigate instrument validity in Appendix Table 5, finding similar results (Dieterie & Snell, 2016).

  18. I chose to use log values, as log and dollar values produce similar results (in terms of coefficient size and significance); however, using logs produced larger f-statistics. I report results for non-logged values in Appendix Table 5.

  19. This is shown in Appendices Fig. 4 and Fig. 5.

  20. The correlation between distance to 2-year schools and mother education attainment is − 0.05, and that between mother education and the distance to a 4-year is − 0.06. I further run a linear regression, finding no significant results when the distance to a 4-year is the outcome. I find that mothers with just a high school degree or an associate degree are more likely to live two miles closer to a community college (significant at 0.01 level).

  21. I cluster standard errors at the high school level, as this is the sampling scheme of the ELS. Standard errors do not change when the level of clustering does; they remain the same when I cluster at the state level. I ignore clustering in the instrumental variable models and subsequent identification tests of the instruments.

  22. The variable indicating the total dollar amount of a student's student loans is not conditional on having student loans. Those who do not have any college loans report values of zero.

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  1. Department of Political Science, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

    Taylor Delaney

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Appendix

Appendix

See Figs. 2, 3, 45 and Tables 4, 5.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Relative cost of college by state. This figure is generated using IPEDS data and reports tuition and fees in $2019. The cost of tuition is weighted by full-time undergraduate enrollment. The Y-axis reflects the average in-district cost of attending a community college by state, while the X-axis reflects the average in-state cost of attending a public, 4-year college by state

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Fig. 3
figure 3

Costs of community college by state. This figure uses IPEDS data from 2004. The Y-axis reflects the costs of community college (in-district tuition and fees) adjusted to $2019. Each line represents the maximum and minimum cost of attending community college by state. The X-axis shows the state abbreviation for each state and is sorted by smallest range to largest range

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Fig. 4
figure 4

Distance to 2-year institutions by state. This figure uses data from IPEDS, the CCD, and PSS. The Y-axis reflects the distance in miles a student faces from their high school to the closest non-selective 4-year institution. Each line represents the maximum and minimum distance to the nearest non-selective 4-year institution and the red marker represents the mean. The X-axis shows the state abbreviation for each state and is in alphabetical order. This is for all public and private high schools in the United States

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Fig. 5
figure 5

Distance to 4-year institutions by state this figure uses data from IPEDS, the CCD, and PSS. The Y-axis reflects the distance in miles a student faces from their high school to the closest non-selective 4-year institution. Each line represents the maximum and minimum distance to the nearest non-selective 4-year institution and the red marker represents the mean. The X-axis shows the state abbreviation for each state and is in alphabetical order. This is for all public and private high schools in the United States

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Table 4 First stage findings
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Table 5 First and second stage findings, robustness checks
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Delaney, T. 2-Year or Not 2-Year? The Impact of Starting at Community College on Bachelor’s Degree Attainment. Res High Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-024-09805-7

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