Community college transfer and degree attainment

... Chapter Community College Transfer and Baccalaureate Attainment Chapter 20 Institutional Variation in Transfer Rates Among California Community Colleges Chapter 78 Reverse Transfer and the Community. .. attending a community college Reverse transfers improve their grade point averages upon transitioning to a community college, 20% transfer back to a four-year college and earn a bachelors degree, and. .. clear that a large proportion of community college entrants plan to use the community college transfer pathway to attain a baccalaureate degree The community college transfer function has taken on

By DEMETRA MARIANNE KALOGRIDES

B.S (Santa Clara University) 2003

M A (University of California, Davis) 2005

DISSERTATION Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in Sociology

in the Office of Graduate Studies

of the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

DAVIS Approved:

UMI Number: 3329625

Copyright 2008 by Kalogrides, Demetra Marianne

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction

In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion

® UMI

UMI Microform 3329625 Copyright 2008 by ProQuest LLC

All rights reserved This microform edition is protected against

unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code

ProQuest LLC

789 E Eisenhower Parkway

PO Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346

Sociology Community College Transfer and Degree Attainment

Abstract

Supporters of community colleges have argued that these institutions offer

upward mobility by opening the door to higher education for disadvantaged students and providing them with additional job training, remedial education, and preparation for transfer to four-year schools Critics, on the other hand, maintain that rather than

democratizing access to higher education, community colleges actually divert

disadvantaged students away from four-year colleges and from attaining bachelor's degrees Given their potential to undermine stratification, understanding whether

community colleges have lived up to their democratizing ideal is imperative

In this dissertation I study pathways to and from community colleges both

nationally and in California I find that the community college is an effective route to a baccalaureate degree for students who transfer Transfer rates remain low, however, and although they vary considerably among different community colleges, it remains unclear which policies or practices distinguish colleges that are relatively more successful in promoting transfer among their students Disadvantaged students and those with weak academic backgrounds often make their way to community colleges after struggling in four-year institutions Although these reverse transfers do not fare as well as students with exclusive four-year college enrollment, they do appear to have more favorable outcomes than otherwise similar students who drop out of postsecondary school

altogether after initially enrolling in a four-year school

ii

Table of Contents

Abstract ii Table of Contents iii

List of Tables iv List of Figures vi

Table 2.1 Descriptives by First College Type 65

Table 2.2 First Stage Instrumental Variables Models 67

Table 2.3 First Stage Propensity Score Models 68

Table 2.4 Discrete-Time Hazard Model of Transfer to a Four-Year College Among

Community College Entrants 69 Table 2.5 Mean Number of Terms Enrolled to Earn Credits 71

Table 2.6 Discrete-Time Hazard Model of Attrition from a Four-Year

Institution 72 Table 2.7 Comparison of Community College Transfer Coefficients Across

Alterative Approaches to Controlling for Selection 74 Table 3.1 Means of Student-Level Measures by Whether Students

Transferred 123 Table 3.2 Student-Level Logit Model Predicting Transfer 125

Table 3.3 Descriptives by Clusters of Community Colleges 128

Table 3.4 Comparison of Means for Community College Characteristics for High

and Low Ranking Schools 130 Table 3.5 OLS Regression Coefficients for Community College Fixed Effects 132

Table A3.1 Means of Independent Variables by Transfer Status & Quintiles of

Predicted Probability of Transfer 133 Table A3.2 Transfer Rates Using Alternative Definitions of Those At Risk 134

Table 4.1 Descriptive Statistics by Postsecondary Enrollment Path 183

Table 4.2 First Stage Propensity Score Models: Logistic Regression of First College

iv

Type 185 Table 4.3a Multinomial Logistic Regression of Transitions from First Four-Year

College 187 Table 4.3b Multinomial Logistic Regression of Transitions from First Four-Year

College: Reverse Transfer vs Dropout 190 Table 4.4 Regression of Income and Credits Earned on Types of Transitions from

Initial Four-Year College 193 Table 4.5 Status of Respondents Excluded from Income Analysis by Postsecondary

Enrollment Pathway 195 Table A4.1 Marginal Effects from Multinomial Logistic Regression Model: Reverse

Transfer vs BA from First Four-Year School 195 Table A4.2 Marginal Effects from Multinomial Logistic Regression Model: Dropout

vs BA from First Four-Year School 197 Table A4.3 Marginal Effects from Multinomial Logistic Regression Model: Lateral

Transfer vs BA from First Four-Year School 198 Table A4.4 Marginal Effects from Multinomial Logistic Regression Model: Reverse

Transfer vs Dropout from First Four-Year School 199

v

Figure 2.1 Relationship between College Distance and the Predicted

Probability of Community College Entrance 75 Figure 2.2 Relationship between Differences in Tuition between Public

Four-Year Institutions and Community Colleges and the Predicted Probability of Community College Entrance 75 Figure 2.3 Predicted Probability of Transfer by Number of Credits

Earned in Community College 76 Figure 2.4 Differences in Academic Credits Earned, by Year of

Enrollment 76 Figure 2.5 Predicted Probability of Attrition from a Four-Year Institution,

by Number of Credits Earned and Transfer Status 77 Figure 2.6 Predicted Probability of Attrition From a Four-Year Institution, by Years

of Enrollment and Transfer Status 77 Figure 3.1 Proportion of Variance Explained by Various Cluster

Solutions 135 Figure 3.2 Kernel Density Plot of Observed Institutional Transfer Rates 135

Figure 3.3 Distributions of Proportion of Students each College Enrolled

in each Quintile of the Predicted Probability of Transfer 136 Figure 3.4 Variation in Observed Transfer Rates within Quintiles of

The Predicted Probability of Transfer 136 Figure 3.5 Kernel Density Plots of Observed Transfer Rates by Community

College Cluster 137

vi

Figure 3.6 Coefficients and Confidence Intervals for the 20 Schools that

Have the Most Positive Impact on Transfer, Net of Student Attributes 137 Figure 3.7 Coefficients and Confidence Intervals for the 20 Schools that

Have the Most Negative Impact on Transfer, Net of Student Attributes 138

vn

CHAPTER 1:

Introduction

2

Rates of college enrollment have risen substantially over the past 25 years In

1980 about 47% of students entered postsecondary school immediately following high school graduation, whereas 67% of students did so in 2005 (National Center for

Education Statistics 2007) Community colleges have accommodated a large share of the increase in postsecondary enrollment (National Center for Education Statistics 2007) More than half of the students who enter college shortly after high school graduation will begin their postsecondary education at a community college (Adelman 2005) and in some states, such as California, this figure is close to 70 percent (National Center for Education Statistics 2005) Community colleges' low cost and close geographic proximity to most potential students open the door to higher education for populations that have

traditionally had limited access to college such as racial/ethnic minorities and students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds (Kane and Rouse 1999) In their

idealized form, therefore, community colleges have the potential to function as a

democratizing force in American society by extending opportunities for access to

education and job training that would not otherwise exist

Whether community colleges have lived up to this democratizing ideal, however, has been a source of contention among researchers Critics maintain that rather than democratizing access to higher education, community colleges actually divert

disadvantaged students away from four-year colleges and from attaining bachelor's degrees Noting high rates of attrition from community colleges, low rates of transfer to four-year colleges, and high rates of attrition among students who do transfer, critics contend that students who attend community colleges attain less education than they

would have had they attended a four-year college Understanding the role of community colleges in social stratification is an important policy concern yet questions still remain about the efficacy of community colleges in improving the educational and economic outcomes of their students In this project I study pathways to and from community colleges both nationally and in California I study student and institution-level predictors

of transfer to four-year colleges, success of transfer students in obtaining baccalaureate degrees, and the predictors and outcomes of "reverse transfers"- students who attend community colleges after attending a four-year school without obtaining a degree I use alternative and more robust methods for addressing self-selection and for identifying appropriate counterfactuals than have been used in prior work Taken as a whole, the findings from this research both confirm prior results and shed new light on the impact community colleges have on the educational outcomes of their students

Literature Review

Community colleges offer a wide variety of degree programs and have diverse missions that range from the provision of transfer education to the provision of adult, remedial, and vocational education (Dougherty 2002) The ambitions of community college attendees are diverse and some students enroll without the intention of

transferring to a four-year college and attaining a bachelor's degree (Alfonso, Bailey, and Scott 2005) However, despite the diversity of the community college mission, transfer education remains one of the most important services provided by these institutions, especially for traditional aged students Among members of the class of 1992 who

entered college shortly after high school graduation, more than three quarters of those whose initial postsecondary school was a community college indicated that they aspired

to transfer and earn a bachelor's degree (author's calculations based on National

Education Longitudinal Study) Although the validity of students' stated aspirations may

be questionable (Reynolds, Stewart, MacDonald, and Sischo 2006), it is clear that a large proportion of community college entrants plan to use the community college transfer pathway to attain a baccalaureate degree

The community college transfer function has taken on increased importance in recent years due to rising four-year college tuition, stagnating need-based student aid, declining incomes for disadvantaged families, and the elimination of remedial education courses in many public four-year colleges (Dougherty 2002; Dougherty and Kienzl 2006; Richardson 2005; Sturrock 2003; Wellman 2002) The transfer function is also

imperative given the rising importance of a baccalaureate degree in today's economy Changes in the domestic and international economy have rendered a college education more important than ever before The college wage premium rose dramatically in the 1980s (Card and Lemieux 2001; Katz and Autor 1999) and is currently as high as at any other point in U.S history (Goldin and Katz 2007) Among men aged 31-35, for example, the wage differential between high school and college graduates grew from 18 percent in 1979-81 to 41 percent in 1989-91 (Card and Lemieux 2001) As of 1999, full-time year-round workers with a bachelor's degree earn nearly twice as much as those with only a high school diploma and those with an advanced degree earned nearly three times as much (Cheeseman Day and Newburger 2002) These increases are driven, in part, by the current demand for highly skilled and high ability workers in today's economy (Goldin and Katz 2007; Johnson and Reed 2007; Taber 2001) By facilitating transfer to four-year

institutions, community colleges have the potential to provide an important alternative pathway to the baccalaureate degree, especially for disadvantaged youth

Given the rise of community college enrollment, the growing importance of a baccalaureate degree in today's economy and the role of community colleges in

providing access to the baccalaureate by facilitating transfer to four-year institutions, the question remains whether community college entrants fare as well as otherwise similar students who initially enroll in a four-year institution Community colleges are often seen

as contradictory institutions and their effect on educational attainment is unclear

Supporters argue that community colleges serve a democratizing role by increasing access to higher education for disadvantaged students who would have otherwise not attended college (Cohen and Brawer 2003; Rouse 1995), while critics argue that these institutions lower rates of baccalaureate attainment among students who would have otherwise attended four-year colleges (Alba and Lavin 1981; Alfonso 2006; Brint and Karabel 1989; Karabel 1972b)

Critics' claims are bolstered by descriptive evidence Although many community college students aspire to a bachelor's degree, most do not receive any type of degree, few transfer to a four-year college and their rates of bachelor's degree attainment trail far behind those of students who initially enter four-year colleges (Brint and Karabel 1989; Dougherty 1987; Dougherty and Kienzl 2006; Karabel 1972a; Lee and Frank 1990) However, the types of students who enter community colleges are "non-traditional" in many respects, face many barriers to degree completion and transfer, and are very

different than the types of students who initially enter four-year schools Compared to four-year college students, community college students come from less advantaged social

6 class backgrounds, are more likely to be racial/ethnic minorities, have lower levels of secondary school academic achievement and educational and occupational aspirations, are less likely to attend college full-time, and are more likely to delay post-secondary enrollment after high school graduation (Adelman 2005; Chen and Carroll 2007;

Dougherty 1992; Horn, Cataldi, and Sikora 2005) These factors are all negatively

associated with bachelor's degree attainment (Adelman 1999; Choy 2002) The

substantial differences in socioeconomic status, enrollment pathways, and high school achievement between community college entrants and four-year entrants create

challenges to identifying whether there is in fact an independent negative institutional effect of attending a community college on educational attainment Community college students would have been less likely to have completed a bachelor's degree on average even if they had attended a four-year institution The question remains, however, if their probability of attaining a bachelor's degree is lowered even further by virtue of attending

a community college

Critiques of community colleges are based on the assumption that there are

institutional features of these schools that impede educational attainment Community college students tend to have limited social and academic integration and weak

connections to the institution, factors that are associated with dropout (Chapman and Pascarella 1983; Dougherty 1992; Tinto 1993; Velez 1985) Community colleges are also unselective and these low levels of academic selectivity lead community college entrants to often be surrounded by peers who are not interested in or good at academic work (Dougherty 1992) Community colleges have also been criticized for failing to provide sufficient advice and counseling for students hoping to transfer and for tracking

some students with baccalaureate aspirations into vocational programs (Brint and Karabel 1989; Clark 1960) Students who transfer may also face significant challenges such as adjusting to increases in tuition and living expenses accompanying the move to a four-year college, losing credits in their transition to a four-year college, and being poorly prepared for the kind of work they will encounter at a four-year college, which makes them prone to failure after they transfer (Cohen 1989; Dougherty 1992; Pascarella and Chapman 1983; Zumeta and Frankle 2007) A lack of strong articulation agreements between community colleges and four-year colleges in some states coupled with

inadequate information regarding the prerequisites for academic success and timely degree completion may also create additional challenges for transfer students (Keith 1996)

It is unclear from prior research whether any of these institutional features of community colleges do in fact inhibit the educational attainment of students Studies that have evaluated the effects of community colleges on educational attainment while

accounting for selection on observable and unobservable student attributes have come to contradictory conclusions In general, findings suggest that community colleges may increase the educational attainment of students who would have otherwise not have attended college (Rouse 1995) but that they may decrease years of education attained for students who would have otherwise attended four-year institutions in their absence (Alba and Lavin 1981; Alfonso 2006)

Recent work also suggests that community college students who transfer are

equally as likely to earn a bachelors degree compared to similar students who begin in a four-year college (Lee, Mackie-Lewis, and Marks 1993; Melguizo 2008; Melguizo and

8 Dowd 2008) On the one hand, this is good news for those concerned with educational stratification and suggests that students who transfer do not face any additional barriers to baccalaureate completion after transitioning to a four-year college On the other hand, transfer rates remain relatively low- below 40%, even among students who aspire to earn

a baccalaureate Transfer rates are particularly low among students with low levels of secondary school achievement and among socioeconomically disadvantaged students (Adelman 2005; Dougherty and Kienzl 2006; McCormick 1997) It is unclear whether transfer rates remain low because community colleges serve a population of relatively disadvantaged students with diverse educational aspirations or whether community colleges are doing something that creates barriers to transfer From a policy perspective,

it would be helpful to know whether there is anything that colleges can do to increase transfer among their students

From prior research we know a great deal about the characteristics of individual students that are associated with transfer Students from higher socioeconomic

backgrounds, those who enter when they are younger, enroll in a more rigorous high school curriculum and earn higher test scores, enroll continuously, full-time, and do not delay college entry after high school graduation are significantly more likely to transfer than other students (Dougherty and Kienzl 2006; Grubb 1991; Lee and Frank 1990; McCormick 1997) Community college students who transfer are much more similar to students who begin postsecondary school in a four-year institution than students who do not transfer (Dougherty and Kienzl 2006) However, as open-door institutions,

community colleges can do little to control the attributes of the students they enroll If

we want to increase transfer rates, therefore, it is important to know what characteristics

and programs of individual community colleges promote successful transfer among their students A better understanding of the organizational and structural features of

community colleges that are associated with higher rates of transfer can aid in the

development of effective policies that may help colleges reduce the barriers to transfer faced by many of their students Removing barriers to transfer should help to mediate racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in baccalaureate attainment

Most research on transfer has focused on vertical transitions from community colleges to four-year institutions Although this work on transfer has gone a long way in helping to improve our understanding of the role of community colleges in the

educational attainment of students who first enter them after high school graduation, we know relatively little about the effects of community colleges on the outcomes of

students who enter these institutions after attending other types of schools Students who start in community college do not represent the full range of students who attend

community colleges during their undergraduate histories (Adelman 2005) In fact,

twenty-six percent of students from the high school class of 1992 who attended

community colleges at some point in their postsecondary career started out in other types

of institutions (Adelman 2005) and undergraduate reverse transfers constitute 25 percent

of the universe of those who started elsewhere These students who entered a four-year college and later transferred to a community college without having received a bachelor's degree constitute nearly 8% of all initial four-year students (Adelman 2005) This group

is characterized by poor academic performance in four-year schools and high rates of non-continuous enrollment (Adelman 2005)

10

In the context of rapid higher education expansion and the drive for 'college for all' the community college has the potential to play a critical role as a postsecondary safety net for the growing number of initial four-year students who enter college with minimal or marginal academic qualifications and who require a great deal of remediation (ACT 2006; ACT 2007; Adelman 2004; Berkner, Chavez, and Carroll 1997) While past research has documented the ways in which the community college offers a second chance to students who have, for individual or structural reasons, not obtained strong academic preparation in secondary school, little work has considered how the community college serves as a second chance for those who began their postsecondary career at a four-year institution but failed to persist (cf Goldrick-Rab and Pfeffer 2007; Townsend and Dever 1999)

Study Overview

In this dissertation I study pathways to and from community colleges both

nationally and in California First, I study the effectiveness of the transfer pathway as an alternative route to a baccalaureate degree among students who transfer Second, I

examine variation in transfer rates among colleges and seek to understand what

characteristics distinguish schools that are relatively more effective in facilitating transfer among their students Third, I analyze the transfer process and the outcomes of students who initially attend four-year colleges but later transfer to a community college prior to attaining a bachelor's degree

In chapter 1,1 examine whether community college students who transfer fare as well as their counterparts who initially enroll in a four-year institution I compare rates of attrition from four-year institutions between community college transfers and students

who began their postsecondary education at a four-year college Prior studies have

provided inconclusive evidence as to whether there is a "penalty" for beginning at a community college rather than a four-year college in terms of educational attainment Inconsistencies in prior work are largely driven by differences in sample composition and differences in methods for handling selection-bias In this chapter I use a discrete-time hazard model to control for year by year differences in credit accumulation between transfers and initial four-year students and compare the results of alternative approaches

to controlling for selection into first college type My approach facilitates an analysis of the timing of dropout, degree completion, and transfer and permits identification of the periods in which students are most at risk of leaving college The results from this study demonstrate that any disadvantage in the odds of attrition from a four-year institution experienced by community college transfers relative to four-year natives is explained entirely by differences in enrollment intensity, academic achievement, and

socioeconomic background—not by any institutional features of community colleges that inhibit educational attainment Community college students are indeed disadvantaged relative to four-year natives on a variety of factors associated with attrition from a four-year institution On average, they come from families with lower income and education, have lower levels of achievement in high school, work more hours per week, are more likely to delay and interrupt enrollment, and earn fewer credits each term that they are enrolled After taking these differences into account, however, they do not experience any additional disadvantage simply by virtue of having attended a community college, as some critics have claimed Therefore, the community college appears to be an effective route to a bachelor's degree for students who transfer

12

In chapter 2,1 turn my attention to variation in the efficacy of community colleges

in facilitating transfer to baccalaureate programs I use data from the population of

students who entered any of California's 107 community colleges between 1992 and

1997 to examine differences in transfer rates among institutions controlling for

differences in the populations of students enrolled in different schools I seek to

understand whether there is 'value-added' by community colleges- or an effect of schools

on transfer independent of the characteristics of their students I find clear evidence that community colleges vary considerably in the types of students they enroll but variation in transfer rates is not explained entirely by student-level measures Even within clusters of colleges with similar enrollment profiles I find variation in rates of transfer to four-year colleges Because I control for a wide range of student-level variables and for measures

of the academic and socioeconomic attributes of students' high schools I can be fairly confident that these differences in transfer result from variation in the organizational or structural attributes of community colleges rather than from uncontrolled attributes of the student bodies Although I find wide variation in transfer rates even after accounting for student-level characteristics, I am unable to explain much of this variance with available college-level measures

Chapter 3 examines students who enter community colleges after attending a four-year college without earning a baccalaureate degree Whereas prior studies of

persistence in four-year institutions have primarily focused on dropout, I consider the full range of alternative outcomes for students who leave their initial four-year institution: dropout, lateral transfer to another four-year institution, and reverse transfer to a

community college The key questions for my purposes are, given the decision to

terminate enrollment in one's initial four-year institution, what differentiates those who transfer to other four-year colleges, those who transfer to a community college and those who dropout entirely? Are similar students better served by transferring to a community college or to another four-year college in terms of their prospects of attaining a degree, the total number of credits earned, and their labor market earnings?

I find that disadvantaged students are significantly more likely to transfer to a community college or drop out of higher education entirely without completing a

bachelor's degree as are students who enroll in less rigorous high school courses and those who struggle academically in their first school I find that reverse transfers persist

in higher education longer than four-year college dropouts and that, conditional on the number of undergraduate credits they attain, they do not suffer an earnings penalty as a result of attending a community college Reverse transfers improve their grade point averages upon transitioning to a community college, 20% transfer back to a four-year college and earn a bachelors degree, and another 25% earn an associate degree Although reverse transfers do not fare as well as students with exclusive four-year college

enrollment, they do appear to have more favorable outcomes than otherwise similar students who drop out of postsecondary school altogether upon leaving their initial

school

Conclusion

As open-door institutions community colleges have the potential to play a

powerful role in democratizing access to higher education, providing an alternative more cost efficient route to the baccalaureate by facilitating transfer to four-year institutions, and offering a safety net for four-year college entrants with poor academic preparation

14 who struggle academically in their initial school For these reasons understanding the role

of community colleges in social stratification is an important policy concern However, prior research leaves many questions unanswered regarding the efficacy of community colleges in improving the educational and economic outcomes of their students

The results of this research suggest that the community college is an effective route to a baccalaureate degree for students who transfer This is important news for policy makers who in some states are looking to cut costs by encouraging students to begin their college education at a two-year institution (Dougherty and Kienzl 2006) Transfer rates remain low, however, and although they vary considerably among different community colleges, my analysis provide no clear indications as to what policies or practices distinguish colleges that are relatively more successful in promoting transfer among their students While it is clear from this study and other recent work (Lee,

Mackie-Lewis, and Marks 1993; Melguizo 2008; Melguizo and Dowd 2008) that

community college students who transfer are no less likely to complete a bachelor's degree than otherwise similar students who begin in a four-year college, students who do transfer appear to be a relatively advantaged group relative to the population of

community college attendees (Dougherty and Kienzl 2006; Lee and Frank 1990)

Therefore, further studying the factors that contribute to disparities in transfer for

students from different social backgrounds will have important implications for our understanding of educational stratification

As an increasing number of students enter four-year institutions minimally

prepared for college-level work (ACT 2006; ACT 2007; Berkner, Chavez, and Carroll 1997), the community college will also continue to play an increasingly important role as

a postsecondary safety net While past research has shown that community colleges offer

a second chance to students who have, for individual or structural reasons, not obtained strong academic preparation in secondary school, the results from this study make it clear that the community college also serves as a second chance for those who began their postsecondary career at a four-year institution but failed to persist Students who are minimally prepared and those who struggle academically while in college are

significantly more likely to reverse transfer or dropout from their initial four-year

institution However, upon enrolling in a community college those who reverse transfer are able to increase their GPAs, some transfer back to a four-year college and attain a bachelor's degree, and others earn an associate's degree Some reverse transfers

ultimately leave school altogether without earning a degree, but bear a significantly reduced financial burden for their final semester(s) If community colleges are available and more affordable, students who may have dropped out will be more likely to reverse transfer instead These students will therefore persist in higher education for a longer period of time, earning more credits and enjoying greater initial success in the labor market Therefore, the community college offers a second chance to earn additional postsecondary training for students who would have otherwise dropped out of college and does so at a discounted price

In sum, the results from this study suggest that community colleges offer an effective and economical route to a bachelor's degree among students who transfer and that they serve as a postsecondary safety net for students who enter four-year colleges with weak academic backgrounds These findings are consistent with the democratization view of community colleges that contends that these institutions expand postsecondary

16 opportunities and decrease inequality in educational attainment At the same time,

however, the possibility that community colleges also play some diversionary role cannot

be ruled out given relatively low rates of transfer and the fact that socioeconomically advantaged students are most likely to transfer

References:

ACT 2006 "Reading Between the Lines: What the ACT Reveals About College

Readiness in Reading." ACT, Iowa City, Iowa

— 2007 "Rigor at Risk: Reaffirming Quality in the High School Core Curriculum."

ACT, Iowa City, Iowa

Adelman, Clifford 1999 "Answers in the Tool Box: Academic Intensity, Attendance

Patterns, and Bachelor's Degree Attainment." Washington, D.C

— 2004 "Principal Indicators of Student Academic Histories in Postsecondary

Education, 1972-2000." National Center for Education Statistics, Washington D.C

— 2005 "Moving into Town—and Moving On: The Community College in the Lives of

Traditional-Age Students." Pp 202: US Department of Education Available from: ED Pubs P.O Box 1398, Jessup, MD 20794-1398 Tel: 877-433-7827; Fax: 301-470-1244; Web site: http://www.edpubs.org

Alba, Richard and David E Lavin 1981 "Community Colleges and Tracking in Higher

Education." Sociology of Education 54:223-37

Alfonso, Mariana 2006 "The Impact of Community College Attendance on

Baccalaureate Attainment." Research in Higher Education 47:873-903

Alfonso, Mariana, Thomas Bailey, and Marc Scott 2005 "The Educational Outcomes of

Occupational Sub-Baccalaureate Students: Evidence from the 1990s." Economics

of Education Review 24:197-212

Berkner, Lutz, Lisa Chavez, and C Dennis Carroll 1997 "Access to Postsecondary

School for the 1992 High School Graduates." U.S Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Washington, D.C

Brint, Steven and Jerome Karabel 1989 The Diverted Dream: Community College and

the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985 New York:

Oxford University Press

Card, David and Thomas Lemieux 2001 "Can Falling Supply Explain the Rising Return

to College for Younger Men? A Cohort-Based Analysis." Quarterly Journal of Economics 116:705-46

Chapman, D and Ernest Pascarella 1983 "Predictors of Academic and Social Integration

of College Students." Research in Higher Education 19:295-322

Cheeseman Day, Jennifer and Eric C Newburger 2002 "The Big Payoff: Educational

Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings." U.S Census Bureau Chen, Xianglei and C Dennis Carroll 2007 "Part-Time Undergraduates in

Postsecondary Education: 2003-04." National Center for Education Statistics Washington, D.C

Choy, Susan P 2002 "Access & Persistence: Findings from 10 Years of Longitudinal

Research on Students." American Council on Education, Washington, D.C

Clark, Burton R 1960 "The 'Cooling-Out' Function in Higher Education." American

Journal of Sociology 65:569-576

Cohen, Arthur M 1989 The American Community College San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Dougherty, Kevin J 1987 "The Effects of Community Colleges: Aid or Hindrance to

Socioeconomic Attainment." Sociology of Education 60:86-103

18

— 1992 "Community Colleges and Baccalaureate Attainment." The Journal of Higher

Education 63:188-214

— 2002 "The Evolving Role of the Community College: Policy Issues and Research

Questions." in Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, edited by J

S a W G Tierney Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic

Dougherty, Kevin J and Gregory S Kienzl 2006 "It's Not Enough to Get Through the

Open Door: Inequalities by Social Background in Transfer from Community

Colleges to Four-Year Colleges." Teachers College Record 108:452-487

Goldin, Claudia and Lawrence F Katz 2007 "The Race between Education and

Technology: The Evolution of U.S Educational Wage Differentials, 1890 to 2005." NBER Working Paper

Goldrick-Rab, Sara and Fabian T Pfeffer 2007 "Second Chances: Student Mobility,

Institutional Differentiation, and Stratification in College Completion." in Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association New York, NY

Grubb, Norton W 1991 "The Decline of Community College Transfer Rates: Evidence

from National Longitudinal Surveys." The Journal of Higher Education

62:194-222

Horn, Laura, Emily Forest Cataldi, and Anna Sikora 2005 "Waiting to Attend College:

Undergraduates Who Delay their Postsecondary Enrollment." National Center for Education Statistics, Washington, D.C

Johnson, Hans P and Deborah Reed 2007 "Can California Import Enough College

Graduates to Meet Workforce Needs." California Counts: Population Trends and Profiles 8 May

Kane, Thomas J and Cecilia Elena Rouse 1999 "The Community College: Educating

Students at the Margin between College and Work." Journal of Economic

Perspectives 13:63-84

Karabel, Jerome 1972a "Community Colleges and Social Stratification." Harvard

Educational Review 42:521-562

— 1972b "Community Colleges and Social Stratification: Submerged Class Conflict in

American Higher Education." Harvard Educational Review 42:521-562

Katz, Lawrence F and David H Autor 1999 "Changes in the Wage Structure and

Earnings Inequality." Pp 1463-1555 in Handbook of Labor Economics, vol 3A,

edited by O Ashenfelter and D Card New York: Elsevier Science

Lee, Valerie E and Kenneth A Frank 1990 "Students' Characteristics that Facilitate the

Transfer from Two-Year to Four-Year Colleges." Sociology of Education

63:178-193

Lee, Valerie E., Christopher Mackie-Lewis, and Helen M Marks 1993 "Persistence to

the Baccalaureate Degree for Students Who Transfer from Community College."

American Journal of Education 102:80-114

McCormick, Alexander C 1997 "Transfer Behavior Among Beginning Postsecondary

Students: 1989-94." National Center for Education Statistics, Washington D.C Melguizo, Tatiana 2008 "Are Community Colleges an Alternative Path For Hispanic

Students to Attain a Bachelor's Degree?" Teachers College Record Forthcoming

Melguizo, Tatiana and Alicia C Dowd 2008 "Baccalaureate Success of Transfers and

Rising Four-Year College Juniors." Teachers College Record Forthcoming

National Center for Education Statistics 2005 "Digest of Education Statistics." National

Center for Education Statistics, Washington, D.C

— 2007 "The Condition of Education." Pp Transition to College

Pascarella, Ernest T and D.W Chapman 1983 "Validation of a Theoretical Model of

College Withdrawal." Research in Higher Education 19:25-48

Reynolds, John, Mike Stewart, Ryan MacDonald, and Lacey Sischo 2006 "Have

Adolescents Become Too Ambitious? High School Seniors' Educational and

Occupational Plans, 1976 to 2000." Social Problems 53:186-206

Richardson, Jeanita W 2005 "Who Shall be Educated?: The Case of Restricting

Remediation at the City University of New York." Education and Urban Society

37:174-192

Rouse, Cecilia Elena 1995 "Democratization or Diversion? The Effect of Community

Colleges on Educational Attainment." Journal of Business & Economic Statistics

13:217-224

Sturrock, Carrie 2003 "Cal State Begins to Enforce Math, English

Remediation-Freshmen Told Not to Return Until They Complete Community College Classes."

Pp aOl in Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA)

Taber, Christopher 2001 "The Rising College Premium in the Eighties: Return to

College or Return to Unobserved Ability?" The Review of Economic Studies

68:665-691

Tinto, Vincent 1993 Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student

Attrition Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press

Townsend, Barabara and John T Dever 1999 "What do We Know About Reverse

Transfer Students?" New Directions for the Community College 106:5-14

Velez, William 1985 "Finishing College: The Effects of College Type." Sociology of

Education 58:191-200

Wellman, Jane 2002 "State Policy and Community College-Baccalaureate Transfer."

National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, San Jose

Zumeta, William and Deborah Frankle 2007 "California Community Colleges: Making

them Stronger and More Affordable." The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education

20 CHAPTER 2:

Community College Transfer and Baccalaureate Attainment

Abstract: By facilitating transfer to four-year institutions, community colleges have the potential to provide an important alternative pathway to the baccalaureate degree,

especially for disadvantaged youth However, questions remain about whether

community college transfers are equally as likely to persist to the baccalaureate compared

to their peers who initially enroll in four-year institutions In this paper I compare the hazard of attrition from a four-year college among community college transfer students and initial four-year students I use a discrete-time hazard model to control for year by year credit accumulation and compare the results of alternative approaches to controlling for selection into first college type The results from this study demonstrate that any disadvantage in the odds of attrition from a four-year institution experienced by

community college transfers is explained entirely by differences in enrollment intensity, academic achievement, and socioeconomic background—not by any institutional features

of community colleges that inhibit educational attainment Therefore, the community college appears to be an effective route to a bachelor's degree for students who transfer The effect of community colleges on the attainment of students who fail to transfer, however, remains unclear

More than half of the students who enter college shortly after high school

graduation will begin their postsecondary education at a community college (Adelman 2005) Students from disadvantaged social and economic backgrounds are even more likely to be found in these institutions than are their more affluent peers and their

representation has increased substantially over time Although students enter community colleges with varying ambitions, the transfer function of these institutions remains very important and has become increasingly important in recent years for a variety of reasons For example, some states are looking to cut costs by encouraging students to begin their college education at a two-year institution (Dougherty 2002; Mercer 1992) States where affirmative action has been abolished, such as California and Texas, are increasingly looking to community college transfer as a way of maintaining a diverse student body (Hebel 2000) Finally, those concerned with social stratification have emphasized the importance of transfer, especially for students from disadvantaged social and economic backgrounds who are increasingly relying on community colleges for access to the baccalaureate because of rising four-year college tuition, stagnating need-based student aid, declining incomes for disadvantaged families, and the reduction of remedial

education in public four-year colleges (Dougherty 2002; Dougherty and Kienzl 2006; Richardson 2005; Sturrock 2003; Wellman 2002)

Given the growing importance of a baccalaureate degree in today's economy and the role of community colleges in providing access to the baccalaureate by facilitating transfer to four-year institutions, the question remains whether community college transfers fare as well as their counterparts who initially enroll in a four-year institution Researchers have long debated whether community colleges democratize higher

education by expanding enrollment opportunities or whether they divert disadvantaged students from attaining bachelors degrees (Alfonso 2006; Cohen and Brawer 2003; Gonzalez and Hilmer 2006 ; Karabel 1972b; Leigh and Gill 2003) On the one hand, some have argued that community colleges serve a democratizing role by increasing access to higher education for disadvantage d students given their open door admissions policies, low costs, and their geographic dispersion (Cohen and Brawer 2003; Rouse 1995) On the other hand, some have argued that community colleges have failed to live

up to this democratizing ideal These critics maintain that community colleges aid in social reproduction, ensuring that disadvantaged children inherit their parents' social class positions (Brint and Karabel 1989; Karabel 1972a) or that they simply serve a

"cooling out" function working to level the unrealistic aspirations of low-achieving youth (Clark 1960) Rather than democratizing higher education, these critics argue that

community colleges are an important component of a class-based tracking system in higher education that diverts disadvantaged students away from four-year colleges and from attaining a bachelor's degree (Alba and Lavin 1981; Karabel 1972a; Rouse 1995)

Studies that have evaluated these two perspectives have provided contradictory results but, in general, they suggest that community colleges may increase the educational attainment of students who would have otherwise not have attended college (Rouse 1995) but that they may decrease years of education attained for students who would have otherwise attended four-year institutions in their absence (Alba and Lavin 1981; Alfonso 2006) The potential of community colleges to ameliorate inequalities in higher

education hinges not only on their role in increasing access to higher education but also

24

on their role in providing access to the baccalaureate by facilitating transfer to four-year institutions

The purpose of this study is to compare rates of attrition from four-year

institutions between community college transfers and students who began their

postsecondary education at a four-year college (hereafter "four-year natives") Rather than comparing the bachelor's degree attainment of all students who begin in a

community college with all students who begin in a four-year college as several prior studies have done (Alfonso 2006; Rouse 1995), I restrict the sample of community

college students to those who successfully transition to a four-year institution Limiting

my sample to transfer students helps me avoid the difficulty of attempting to identify which community college entrants really aspire to transfer and earn a bachelor's degree and helps ensure that I am making a fair comparison Prior research shows us that the size

of the community college effect depends, in part, on how researchers define the

counterfactual (Alfonso 2006; Lee, Mackie-Lewis, and Marks 1993; Melguizo and Dowd 2008; Rouse 1995; Velez 1985) Focusing only on transfer students permits an

appropriate comparison with initial four-year students without confounding the results by the presence of community college students with uncertain educational ambitions

(Melguizo and Dowd 2008)

In this study I also make two important methodological improvements over prior work First, I use a variety of approaches to handle self-selection into a community college I compare results adjusted on an extensive set of observable student attributes to results from selection models using propensity scores and instrumental variables To consistently estimate the effect of attending a community college on bachelor's degree

attainment, it is necessary to account for the observable and unobservable factors that lead students to first enroll in a community college rather than a four-year institution Failure to account for both components of the selection process can result in biased estimates of the community college effect, since characteristics that determine college selection might also predict the probability of attaining a bachelor's degree

Second, I utilize information from each year of student enrollment in

postsecondary school to adjust for differences in credits earned between community college transfers and four-year natives While some studies have compared rates of baccalaureate attainment between transfers and four-year natives (Lee, Mackie-Lewis, and Marks 1993; Melguizo and Dowd 2008), none have adequately controlled for

differences in part- versus full-time enrollment status By standardizing on credits earned,

my approach permits a comparison of initial two- and four-year students who are not only similar on a host of covariates but who have also made similar progress toward their bachelor's degree This is of critical importance because few transfer students actually transfer with an associate's degree or have junior status upon initial enrollment at their four-year institution (McCormick 1997) Therefore, two years of attendance at a

community college, even as a full-time student, may not yield as many credits as two years of attendance at a four-year college My approach facilitates an analysis of the timing of dropout, degree completion, and transfer and permits identification of the periods in which students are most at risk of leaving college

Prior Research

Early research on the effects of community colleges fueled critics' contentions that these institutions play a diversionary role working to hinder the attainment of

disadvantaged students These studies found high attrition from community colleges, low rates of transfer to four-year institutions, and low rates of bachelor's degree attainment among successful transfers (Adelman 2004; Anderson 1981; Brint and Karabel 1989; Dougherty 1992; Holmstrom and Bisconti 1974; Velez 1985) More recent studies have used more robust methods to account for observable and unobservable differences

between those who begin in a two-year versus a four-year college after high school graduation The bulk of these recent studies suggest that, on average, community colleges increase years of educational attainment among students who would not have otherwise attended college and, while there is still some evidence of a diversion effect, recent research suggests that this effect is smaller than suggested by early work (Alfonso 2006; Gonzalez and Hilmer 2006 ; Grubb 1989; Leigh and Gill 2003; Melguizo and Dowd 2008; Rouse 1995)

Most studies that have examined the effect of community colleges compare rates

of bachelor's degree attainment or years of education earned by students who first

attended a community college and those who initially attended a four-year college The goal of this research is to determine whether there is a penalty to beginning at a

community college rather than a four-year college after accounting for differences in the attributes of initial two- and four-year students There are a variety of theories as to why community college students may experience less favorable educational outcomes relative

to their four-year counterparts For example, community college students tend to have limited social and academic integration and weak connections to the institution, factors that are associated with dropout (Chapman and Pascarella 1983; Dougherty 1992; Tinto 1993; Velez 1985) Community colleges are also unselective and this lack of selectivity

in or good at academic work (Dougherty 1992) Community colleges have also been critiqued for failing to provide sufficient advice and counseling for students hoping to transfer and for tracking some students with baccalaureate aspirations into vocational programs (Brint and Karabel 1989; Clark 1960) Students who transfer from a

community to a four-year college may also face significant challenges such as adjusting

to increases in tuition and living expenses accompanying the move to a four-year college, losing credits in their transition to a four-year college, and being poorly prepared for the kind of work they will encounter at a four-year college, which makes them prone to failure after they transfer (Cohen 1989; Dougherty 1992; Pascarella and Chapman 1983; Zumeta and Frankle 2007) A lack of strong articulation agreements between community colleges and four-year colleges in some states coupled with inadequate information regarding the prerequisites for academic success and timely degree completion may also create additional challenges for transfer students (Keith 1996)

A significant challenge with this line of research is fully controlling for all

differences between initial two- and four-year students Compared to four-year college students, community college students come from less advantaged social class

backgrounds, are more likely to be racial/ethnic minorities, have lower levels of

secondary school academic achievement and educational and occupational aspirations, are less likely to attend college full-time, and are more likely to delay post-secondary enrollment after high school graduation (Adelman 2005; Chen and Carroll 2007;

Dougherty 1992; Horn, Cataldi, and Sikora 2005) These factors are all negatively

associated with bachelor's degree attainment (Adelman 1999; Choy 2002) Failure to

28 adequately adjust for the many differences between initial two- and four-year Students may lead to biased estimates of the community college effect since uncontrolled factors associated with beginning postsecondary school at a community college instead of a four-year college may also be associated with degree attainment (Alba and Lavin 1981;

Alfonso 2006; Rouse 1995) Though most studies control for differences in family background and academic achievement, this approach is based on the assumption that, conditional on the included covariates, there are no additional factors related to both attending a community college and attaining a bachelor's degree Although conditioning

on family background and achievement goes a long way toward addressing the selection problem, there are likely unobserved measures of ability and aspirations that are not fully captured by such measures (Rouse 1995)

Several prior studies have attempted to use more robust quasi-experimental methods to account for this potential selection bias Alba and Lavin (1981) attempted to control for self-selection in their study of applicants to four-year schools in the City University of New York system They used a natural experiment to compare the

educational outcomes of two similar groups of students who applied for entry to CUNYs and met the open-admissions category for entry to the senior colleges: one group was placed in them, while the other group was placed in two-year schools They argue that the two groups are very similar academically because acceptance or rejection was determined

by factors weakly related to subsequent academic achievement and because two-year students' baccalaureate aspirations were confirmed in a later survey (Alba and Lavin 1981) They find that students assigned to a two-year college had lower educational attainment than the four-year students and conclude that community colleges deter

assignment to two and four year schools in this case were not entirely random as the two groups differed in average levels of high school achievement This unobserved

heterogeneity may undermine their finding of lower educational attainment among initial two-year students (Rouse 1995).2

Several other studies have used instrumental variables and/or propensity score matching techniques to estimate the effect of community colleges on educational

attainment Rouse (1995) used distance between high schools students attended and public two- and four-year colleges and average in-state tuition at public two- and four-year colleges as instruments with which to identify selection into a community college Her findings suggest that community college students are less likely than four-year students to attain a bachelor's degree prior to adjusting for selection However, after adjusting for selection in her instrumental variables models, only small non-significant differences in educational attainment between two- and four-year students remain A similar instrumental variables approach was taken by Alfonso (2006), although she found

a significant negative community college effect ~ enrolling at a community college, instead of a four-year institution, reduced students' chances of attaining a bachelor's degree by between 21% and 33% The difference in these findings is possibly due to differences in data used (High School and Beyond class of 1980 and National Education Longitudinal Study class of 1992) and to differences in the set of control variables

included in the models

1 Students assigned to a two-year college were about 20% less likely to attain a bachelor's degree, earned substantially fewer credits, and had lower second to third and third to fourth year persistence than students assigned to four-year institutions, net of high school achievement and college performance (Alba and Lavin 1981)

For an additional critique of Alba and Lavin's (1981) study see Lau (1984)

30

Long and Kurlaender (2007) used propensity score matching and instrumental variable strategies to evaluate the effect of community college attendance in the state of Ohio Their findings suggest that community college students are 14 percent less likely to obtain a bachelor's degree in six years and that they complete 18 fewer credits than students who initially attend a four-year college Finally, Melguizo et al (2008)

compared rates of bachelor's degree attainment between junior level four-year students and community college transfers using propensity score matching to control for selection

on observables They found no differences in the outcomes of transfers and four-year college juniors and conclude that there are no penalties to degree completion and credits earned for the small proportion of community college entrants who transfer to a four-year college

While instrumental variables have been used with some success in prior research, this method can present some problems Finding instruments that are strongly correlated with the endogenous explanatory variable but conditionally independent of the outcome can be difficult Using instruments that are only weakly correlated with the endogenous variable can produce inconsistent estimates with large standard errors (Bound, Jaeger, and Baker 1995; Cameron and Trivedi 2005) The measures of college accessibility that are typically used to identify selection into a community college (proximity to

community and four-year colleges and average tuition of community and four-year colleges in respondents' states), while strongly associated with community college

entrance, have been critiqued as being potentially endogenous If, for example, families who value education choose to live in close proximity to colleges or to live in states with low college tuition then the instruments are not truly exogenous which can create biased

estimates (Rouse 1995) The strength of instrumental variables is that, in theory, they allow the analyst to adjust for selection on unobservables However, given the potential problems with using these models, I will compare the results of an IV model with

alternate models adjusted on an extensive set of observable student attributes and to a model based on propensity scores

Another significant challenge in studying whether there is a penalty to attending a community college involves determining which groups of two- and four-year students to compare Three different approaches have been taken in prior research: comparing all initial two-year to all initial four-year students, comparing community college transfers to all initial four-year students, and comparing community college transfers to initial four-year students who persist until their junior year Each of these approaches presents some problems

First, studies that compare all initial two- and four-year students are problematic given that many community college students enroll without any intention of transferring and attaining a bachelor's degree (Cohen and Brawer 2003) Although some studies control for students' stated educational aspirations (e.g., Leigh and Gill 2003), this

remains an imperfect solution given other studies that have shown that students'

aspirations tend to be universally (and often unrealistically) high and that the connection between ambitions and attainments has become increasingly weak over time (Reynolds, Stewart, MacDonald, and Sischo 2006) Studies that have compared all initial two- and four-year students have found that community college entrants earn fewer years of

education than four-year college entrants, although the size of this effect varies in

community college students may fall behind initial four-year students in their progress toward a bachelor's degree: high rates of attrition from community colleges, failure to transfer to a four-year college, and high rates of attrition from four-year institutions among community college transfers The results of these studies, however, provide no indication of which of these stages contribute most to the negative community college effects identified In order to develop effective policies, it would be helpful to know if all

or most of the negative community college effect is concentrated within one of these three stages By restricting my analyses to community college students who transfer to a four-year institution, I am able to evaluate the effectiveness of the transfer pathway as an alternative route to a bachelor's degree among those who do transfer and to gauge

whether and when transfers fall behind four-year natives en route to the baccalaureate

Second, studies that compare community college transfers with all initial year students are potentially biased because comparisons are usually made between students who have not made equitable progress toward their degrees Since a substantial share of attrition from college occurs during the freshman and sophomore years

four-(Pascarella and Terenzini 1991), this method biases the comparison of completion rates

in favor of transfer students The students whom I observe transferring have already persisted in college for one or two years and are therefore more likely to complete while