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Do community colleges really divert students from earning bachelor's degrees?
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Economics of Education Review Volume 22, Number 1 ISSN 0272-7757 Publisher: Elsevier Ltd

Abstract

This paper provides new estimates of the ‘diversion effect’ argument advanced by critics of community colleges. As emphasized by Rouse (J. Business Econ. Statist. 13 (1995) 217), information on students' desired level of schooling is essential to properly measure the diversion effect of community colleges as well as their ‘democratization effect’ increasing access to higher education. Using information on desired years of schooling from early waves of the NLSY, we find that the choice between alternative postsecondary education tracks including the choice of community college students between transfer and terminal programs is highly sensitive to years of desired schooling. Diversion effect estimates are also found to depend on whether we condition on desired schooling. For individuals who express a desire to complete at least 16 years of schooling, our diversion effect estimates lie between −0.7 and −1.0 years. These estimates are clearly dominated by positive democratization effect estimates. On balance, therefore, we find for individuals desiring a bachelor's degree that community colleges increase average educational attainment by between 0.4 and 1.0 years.

Citation

Leigh, D.E. & Gill, A.M. Do community colleges really divert students from earning bachelor's degrees?. Economics of Education Review, 22(1), 23-30. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved August 11, 2024 from .

This record was imported from Economics of Education Review on March 1, 2019. Economics of Education Review is a publication of Elsevier.

Full text is availabe on Science Direct: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0272-7757(01)00057-7

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References

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