The effect of community college enrollment on bachelor's degree completion

William R. Doyle

Economics of Education Review, 2009, vol. 28, issue 2, pages 199-206

Abstract: Rouse [Rouse, C. E. (1995). Democratization or diversion--the effect of community-colleges on educational-attainment. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 13(2), 217-224] finds that enrollment in a community college may divert students from attaining a bachelor's degree. However, this result may be due to selection bias, as the population of community college students should be quite different from those who attend 4-year institutions in terms of both observable and unobservable characteristics. This study uses propensity score matching to non-parametrically balance a data set from the 1996 Beginning Postsecondary Students survey in order to overcome issues associated with selection bias. Results from a Cox proportional hazards model indicate that attendance at a community college lowers the hazard rate for completing a bachelor's degree. The results are consistent with previous studies.

Keywords: Efficiency; Costs; Higher; education; Community; colleges (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009

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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:28:y:2009:i:2:p:199-206

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