Does Attending Community Colleges Hurt Students' Chance of Attaining Baccalaureate Degrees? Evidence From Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 Data

• In Event: Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: Making It Through: Predicting College Student Success, Persistence, and Attainment

Abstract

Each year, many students make choice between attending four-year universities and two-year community colleges, and they wonder how their decisions may affect their educational outcomes. Accordingly, researchers made efforts to investigate the effect of attending community colleges, but after decades, the magnitude, or even the direction, of the effect remains unclear. By using propensity score matching, I analyzed data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 and provided further evidence. I found that attending community colleges substantially lower students’ chance of attaining baccalaureate degrees. I also estimated the heterogeneous treatment effect based on institutional type, and I found that, although attending four-year universities in general raises one’s opportunity to obtain a bachelor’s degree, attending a for-profit one helps little.

Author

• Yiran Chen, Boston College