Long-run Impacts of CCB Introduction and Expansion: Evidence from Washington State

• In Event: Structural Solutions for Student Success: The Impact of Alternative Course Models at Community Colleges

Abstract

Today, 24 states allow community colleges to directly award bachelor’s degrees. In an optimistic conception, community college baccalaureate (CCB) programs–with their relatively low tuition and flexible scheduling options for non-traditional students–can provide an access point for students who otherwise would not have pursued a bachelor’s degree or can lower the cost for students looking to complete a BA who otherwise would have done so at a four-year college (New America, 2021). Despite the prevalence of CCB legislation, and its growth over the last several decades, little is known about the value of these degrees in the labor market and consequently, about the net benefit to students relative to degree alternatives (notable exceptions include descriptive and experimental work forthcoming from Acton, Cortes, Miller, Morales, and Turner). This paper aims to fill existing gaps in the literature by using administrative data from Washington state--one of only two states that allow all community colleges to offer CCB degrees--to explore the causal effect of CCB introduction on educational attainment and labor market outcomes.

The analysis proceeds in two stages. First, I estimate the “combined effect” of CCB introduction using Washington's staggered program implementation to examine impacts on bachelor's degree completion rates and long-run earnings. The paper then decomposes the combined effect to explore heterogeneous impacts across different student populations based on their counterfactual enrollment decisions. Specifically, I identify three distinct channels through which CCB programs affect students: democratization (students who would otherwise not pursue postsecondary education), upgrading (students who would otherwise pursue only an associate degree), and lateral diversion (students who would otherwise attend traditional four-year institutions). This decomposition of the combined effect--based on the methodological framework developed in Mountjoy (2024)--explores whether CCB programs are currently fulfilling their intended mission of expanding bachelor's degree access or merely redirecting enrollment from traditional institutions. Using longitudinal administrative data from Washington state, my preliminary findings offer some of the first causal estimates of CCB introduction on student outcomes.

Author

• Julia A Turner, Northwestern University
  Presenting Author