Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due: Causal Impacts of Reverse Transfer Associate Degrees on Education and Labor-Market Outcomes (Poster 5)

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

Reverse transfer associate degrees are credentials retroactively awarded to current bachelor’s degree seekers by combining their current four-year credits with credits previously earned at a community college. Providing students with an associate degree may not only increase motivation and persistence toward a B.A. but may also provide important labor-market benefits. Despite the proliferation of this policy across at least 15 states, there is no causal evidence of their impacts on students’ academic or labor-market outcomes. Leveraging administrative data from Tennessee matched with records on its statewide reverse transfer program and a difference-in-differences design, I estimate impacts of these awards on students’ short- and intermediate-term academic and labor-market outcomes. Results suggest reverse transfer associate degrees have little if any effects other than suggestive small positive impacts on GPA and short-term employment accompanied by suggestive negative impacts on eligible cohorts’ B.A. attainment rates. These findings contrast those of existing descriptive works, due in part to better data and more rigorous methods, and should guide policymakers considering the adoption, design, and ongoing operation of reverse transfer programs.

Author

• Taylor Kincaid Odle, University of Wisconsin - Madison