Using data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study and propensity score matching techniques, this study examined the impact of having attended a community college on baccalaureate recipients’ access to graduate and professional schools in general and how previous community college attendance influenced student enrollment in different professional and graduate programs. Our findings revealed that there was no significant negative or positive effect of community college attendance on access to graduate or professional school or on program enrollment choices. These results imply that community college attendance does not limit access to graduate and professional education and holds the promise to complement the route to graduate and professional school.
American Association of Community Colleges. (2015). Community college completion: Progress toward goal of 50% increase. Washington, DC: Author.
2.
AustinP. C. (2010). Statistical criteria for selecting the optimal number of untreated subjects matched to each treated subject when using many-to-one matching on the propensity score. American Journal of Epidemiology, 172, 1092–1097.
3.
AustinP. C.JembereN.ChiuM. (2018). Propensity score matching and complex surveys. Statistical Methods in Medical Research, 27, 1240–1257.
4.
BaileyT. R.JaggarsS. S.JenkinsD. (2015). Redesigning America’s community colleges: A clearer path to student success. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
5.
BaumS.SteeleP. (2017). Who goes to graduate school and who succeeds?West Chester, PA: Access Group.
6.
BeckerG. S. (1975). Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis with special reference to education (2nd ed.). New York, NY: National Bureau of Economic Research.
7.
BeckerG. S. (1994). Human capital revisited. In BeckerG. S. (Ed.), Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis with special reference to education (3rd ed., pp. 15–28). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
CarnevaleA. P.CheahB.HansonA. R. (2015). The economic value of college majors. Washington, DC: Center on Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University.
10.
ClarkB. R. (1960). The “cooling-out” function in higher education. American Journal of Sociology, 65, 569–576.
11.
CohenA. M.BrawerF. B.KiskerC. B. (2014). The American community college (6th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
12.
Council of Graduate Schools. (2016). Graduate schools report strong growth in first-time enrollment of underrepresented minorities. Washington, DC: Author.
13.
Council of Graduate Schools & Educational Testing Service. (2010). The path forward: The future of graduate education in the United States. Report from the Commission on the Future of Graduate Education in the United States. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.
14.
CrispG. (2013). The influence of co-enrollment on the success of traditional age community college students. Teachers College Record, 115(10), 1–25.
15.
CrispG. (2017). Student flow and success at 2- and 4-year broadly accessible institutions. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2017, 103–113.
16.
DoughertyK. J. (1992). Community colleges and baccalaureate attainment. Journal of Higher Education, 63, 188–214.
17.
DowdA. C.CouryT. (2006). The effect of loans on the persistence and attainment of community college students. Research in Higher Education, 47, 33–62.
18.
DoyleW. R. (2009). The effect of community college enrollment on bachelor’s degree completion. Economics of Education Review, 28, 199–206.
19.
EnglishD.UmbachP. D. (2016). Graduate school choice: An examination of individual and institutional effects. Review of Higher Education, 39, 173–211.
20.
EthingtonC. A.SmartJ. C. (1986). Persistence to graduate education. Research in Higher Education, 24, 287–303.
21.
GonzalezA.HilmerM. J. (2006). The role of 2-year colleges in the improving situation of Hispanic postsecondary education. Economics of Education Review, 25, 249–257.
22.
HathawayR. S.NagdaB. A.GregermanS. R. (2002). The relationship of undergraduate research participation to graduate and professional education pursuit: An empirical study. Journal of College Student Development, 43(5), 1–18.
23.
HearnJ. C. (1984). The relative roles of academic ascribed and socioeconomic characteristics in college destinations. Sociology of Education, 57, 22–30.
24.
HearnJ. C. (1987). Impacts of undergraduate experiences on aspirations and plans for graduate and professional education. Research in Higher Education, 27, 119–141.
25.
HellerD. E. (2001). Debts and decisions: Student loans and their relationship to graduate school and career choice. Indianapolis, IN: Lumina Foundation for Education.
26.
IlohC.TierneyW. G. (2014). Understanding for-profit college and community college choice through rational choice. Teachers College Record, 116(8), 1–34.
27.
JenkinsD.FinkJ. (2015). What we know about transfer. New York, NY: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University.
28.
KingG.NielsenR.CoberleyC.PopeJ. E.WellsA. (2011). Comparative effectiveness of matching methods for causal inference. Unpublished manuscript.
29.
LaananF. S. (2001). Transfer student adjustment. New Directions for Community Colleges, 2001, 5–13.
30.
LeighD. E.GillA. M. (2003). Do community colleges really divert students from earning bachelor’s degrees?Economics of Education Review, 22, 23–30.
31.
LongB. T.KurlaenderM. (2009). Do community colleges provide a viable pathway to a baccalaureate degree?Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 31, 30–53.
32.
MalcomL. E.DowdA. C. (2012). The impact of undergraduate debt on the graduate school enrollment of STEM baccalaureates. Review of Higher Education, 35, 265–305.
33.
MelguizoT.DowdA. C. (2009). Baccalaureate success of transfers and rising 4-year college juniors. Teachers College Record, 111(1), 55–89.
34.
MelguizoT.KienzlG. L.AlfonsoM. (2011). Comparing the educational attainment of community college transfer students and four-year college rising juniors using propensity score matching methods. Journal of Higher Education, 82, 265–291.
35.
MillettC. M. (2003). How undergraduate loan debt affects application and enrollment in graduate or first professional school. Journal of Higher Education, 74, 386–427.
36.
MishoryJ. (2018). The future of statewide college promise programs: A state guide to free college. New York, NY: Century Foundation.
37.
MooneyG. M.FoleyD. J. (2011). Community colleges: Playing an important role in the education of science, engineering, and health graduates (InfoBrief NSF 11-317). Washington, DC: National Science Foundation.
38.
MullenA. L.GoyetteK. A.SoaresJ. A. (2003). Who goes to graduate school? Social and academic correlates of educational continuation after college. Sociology of Education, 76, 143–169.
39.
MullinC. M. (2012). Transfer: An indispensable part of the community college mission (Policy Brief 2012-03PBL). Washington, DC: American Association of Community Colleges.
40.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2011). Community college student outcomes: 1994–2009 (NCES 2012-253). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
41.
National Science Foundation. (2015). Science and engineering doctorates. Washington, DC: Author.
42.
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. (2017). From community college to graduate and professional degrees. Herndon, VA: National Student Clearinghouse.
43.
OsegueraL. (2005). Four and six-year baccalaureate degree completion by institutional characteristics and racial/ethnic groups. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice, 7, 19–59.
44.
PascarellaE. T.EdisonM.NoraA.HagedornL. S.TerenziniP. T. (1998). Does community college versus four-year college attendance influence students’ educational plans?Journal of College Student Development, 39, 179–193.
45.
PaulsenM. B.ToutkoushianR. K. (2008). Economic models and policy analysis in higher education: A diagrammatic exposition. In SmartJ. C. (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 23, pp. 1–48). New York, NY: Springer Science+Business Media.
46.
PernaL. W. (2004). Understanding the decision to enroll in graduate school: Sex and racial/ethnic group differences. Journal of Higher Education, 75, 487–527.
47.
RassenJ. A.ShelatA. A.MyersJ.GlynnR. J.RothmanK. J.SchneeweissS. (2012). One-to-many propensity score matching in cohort studies. Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, 21(S2), 69–80.
48.
ReynoldsC. L. (2012). Where to attend? Estimating the effects of beginning college at a two-year institution. Economics of Education Review, 31, 345–362.
49.
RosenbaumP. R. (2010). Observational studies. New York, NY: Springer.
RosenbaumP. R.RubinD. B. (1985). Constructing a control group using multivariate matched sampling methods that incorporate the propensity score. American Statistician, 39, 33–38.
52.
RouseC. E. (1995). Democratization or diversion? The effect of community colleges on educational attainment. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 13, 217–224.
53.
SeibertS. E.KraimerM. L.HoltomB. C.PierottiA. J. (2013). Even the best laid plans sometimes go askew: Career self-management processes, career shocks, and the decision to pursue graduate education. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98, 169–182.
54.
ShapiroD.DundarA.WakhunguP. K.YuanX.NathanA.HwangY. (2016). Completing college: A national view of student attainment rates: Fall 2010 cohort (Signature Report No. 12). Herndon, VA: National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
55.
StataCorp. (2017). Stata statistical software: Release 15. College Station, TX: Author.
56.
StuartE. A. (2010). Matching methods for causal inference: A review and a look forward. Statistical Science: A Review Journal of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 25(1), 1.
57.
TierneyW. G.VenegasK. M. (2009). Finding money on the table: Information, financial aid, and access to college. Journal of Higher Education, 80, 363–388.
58.
TitusM. A. (2006). Understanding the influence of the financial context of institutions on student persistence at four-year colleges and universities. Journal of Higher Education, 77, 353–375.
59.
TsapogasJ.CahalanM. (1996, May). Incidence of and factors related to progression to graduate school among recent science and engineering bachelor’s degree recipients: Results from a national study. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Institutional Research, Albuquerque, NM.
60.
UmbachP. D.TuchmayerJ. B.ClaytonA. B.SmithK. N. (2018): Transfer student success: Exploring community college, university, and individual predictors. Community College Journal of Research and Practice. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/10668926.2018.1520658
61.
WangX. (2016). A multilevel analysis of community college students’ transfer to four-year institutions of varying selectivity. Teachers College Record, 118(12), 1–44.
62.
WangX.McCreadyB. (2013). The effect of postsecondary co-enrollment on college success: Initial evidence and implications for policy and future research. Educational Researcher, 42, 392–402.
63.
WangX.WickershamK. (2014). Postsecondary co-enrollment and baccalaureate completion: A look at both beginning 4-year college students and baccalaureate aspirants beginning at community colleges. Research in Higher Education, 55, 166–195.
64.
XuD.JaggarsS. S.FletcherJ.FinkJ. E. (2018). Are community college transfer students “a good bet” for 4-year admissions? Comparing academic and labor-market outcomes between transfer and native 4-year college students. Journal of Higher Education, 89, 478–502.
65.
ZhangL. (2005). Advance to graduate education: The effect of college quality and undergraduate majors. Review of Higher Education, 28, 313–338.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
