Expanding Opportunity at Community Colleges: Credentials, Transfers, and Supports

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Community colleges serve nearly 9 million students, disproportionately those historically underrepresented in postsecondary education. As gaps in bachelor's degree completion continue to widen across race and income lines, a growing set of policies aim to improve the pathway from community college to bachelor’s degree completion. This panel brings together four papers that explore whether and how these policy innovations are shaping pathways and if those pathways translate into meaningful gains in degree completion and labor market outcomes.

The first paper (Velasco and Miller) documents state-by-state variation in bachelor's and graduate degree completion in STEM fields for students who begin their postsecondary careers at a community college. Using national data, the authors find that only 2 percent of community college entrants completed a STEM bachelor's within six years, with significant underrepresentation of Black, Hispanic, and female students. Patterns vary considerably by field and gender gaps in STEM completion persist among transfers even after accounting for student and institutional characteristics.

Against this backdrop, the second paper (Castleman and Bird) asks whether intervening earlier, before students ever attempt to navigate the transfer pipeline, can improve outcomes. Rather than expanding resources, their multi-semester randomized controlled trial at Piedmont Virginia Community College reallocated existing tutoring and advising supports directly into gateway courses in math, English, and biology. The authors find that treated students were significantly more likely to meet with a tutor or advisor, more likely to pass their courses, and less likely to withdraw; effects were especially strong for first-generation and new students. These findings demonstrate that resource reallocation can meaningfully improve outcomes.

The third paper (Hemelt et al.) follows students who have successfully navigated the transfer pathway by evaluating TrACE—an adaptation of the highly successful ASAP model—across three universities in North Carolina. TrACE combines intensive advising with financial supports, links to academic and career services, and incentives for social integration into university life. Results vary across institutions, showing strong gains in degree completion at one university, moderate effects at a second, and negative effects on persistence and completion at a third. These conflicting findings underscore how institutional context and implementation quality shape program effectiveness even when the underlying model is held constant.

The final paper (Turner) studies a structural change that serves, in some states, as an alternative to the transfer pathway: the community college baccalaureate (CCB), which authorizes community colleges to confer bachelor's degrees directly. Exploiting the staggered rollout of CCB programs across Washington state between 2005 and 2024, Turner finds that aggregate gains in degree attainment mask important heterogeneity across student subgroups. CCBs appear to democratize access for students who would otherwise stop at a two-year credential while potentially diverting more academically prepared students away from higher-return four-year pathways.

Together, these papers advance our understanding of a central question in higher education policy: what combination of structural pathways, institutional redesign, and targeted supports can most effectively expand bachelor's degree access for students who start at community colleges—and under what conditions do these interventions deliver on their equity promise?

Policy Area

• Education

Chair

• Daniel Sparks, University of Arkansas

Discussants

• Katharine Meyer, Brookings Institution

• Michal Kurlaender, University of California, Davis

Organizer

• Julia A Turner, Northwestern University

Individual Presentations

• Who Makes it in STEM? Transfer Pathways to Bachelor's and Graduate Education, National and State-Level Evidence - Presenting Author: Tatiana Velasco, Columbia University

• Meeting People Where They Are: Experimental Evidence on Embedded Supports, Service Use, and Educational Outcomes - Presenting Author: Benjamin L. Castleman, University of Virginia

• A Tale of Three TrACEs: Effects of an ASAP/ACE Adaptation for Transfer Students on Postsecondary Progress - Presenting Author: Steven W. Hemelt, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Degrees within Reach: Who Benefits from Community College Baccalaureate Introduction? - Presenting Author: Julia A Turner, Northwestern University