Community College Attendance Research Articles

Building and Maintaining an Engineering Identity: How Engineering Students Navigate Community College Stigma Prior to Transfer

ABSTRACT This research brief outlines a phenomenological study which sought to understand how community college students made sense of their engineering identity as well as explore how outsider perceptions of community college attendance and transfer influenced their identities. The study used the Community College Stigmatization Model (CCSM) and elements of engineering identity theory to understand student experiences. Students shared how societal stigma and interactions with faculty, staff, and students at the high school and university levels complicated their ability to build strong engineering identities. However, they also described resistance against stigmatization and marginalization as community college engineering students and took actions to enhance their engineering identities. This study highlights the persistent nature of stigma and the need to create better partnerships and support systems as well as foster stigma resistance among community college engineering students.

Rates, routes, and reasons for attending community college before medical school: An analysis of a subset of Southern California medical students

<abstract> <p>Community college (CC) has traditionally existed as a bridge between high school and a four-year, baccalaureate-awarding, university. With the ever-increasing number of CCs present in the United States and the rising numbers of applicants to medical school, there will inevitably be a substantial proportion of future physicians who have attended CC. Based on previous research, we surveyed the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine (UCISOM) student body to assess how many students had attended CC, when and why they attended, and if they intended to practice with underserved communities in the future. A total of 30 (28.6%) of the 105 survey respondents attended CC prior to medical school. Those students cited Academic Flexibility, Financial Reasons/Affordability, and the inability to enroll in a particular course at their four-year institutions as the top three reasons for attending CC. Ten of those students (30%) reported they were informed that attending CC would negatively impact their medical school application. Older students were more likely to attend CC, and there was no statistically significant correlation between CC attendance and the number of times one applied to medical school or between CC attendance and gender, race, ethnicity, and intention to practice in underserved communities. This article highlights the understanding of the effects of CC attendance on medical school admissions while comparing our sample of 105 UCISOM students to previous research studies.</p> </abstract>

Considerations on the field theory of community expectancy and college attendance: The urban neighborhood

Considerations on the field theory of community expectancy and college attendance: The urban neighborhood

Association Between a Medical School Applicant's Community College Attendance and the Likelihood of Application Acceptance: An Investigation of Select Medical School Characteristics.

One-third of medical school applicants attend a community college (CC), and they represent a diverse group of applicants. However, they have a lower likelihood of being accepted to medical school. Using application-level data, this study examines how an applicant's CC attendance impacts the likelihood of application acceptance and how 3 medical school characteristics moderate this association. Data examined were from 2,179,483 applications submitted to at least one of 146 U.S. Liaison Committee on Medical Education-accredited medical schools by 124,862 applicants between 2018 and 2020. The outcome was application acceptance. The main measures were applicants' CC attendance (no, lower [> 0%-19% of college course hours], or higher [≥ 20%]) and 3 medical school characteristics: geographic region, private versus public control, and admissions policy regarding CC coursework. Multilevel logistic regression models estimated the association between CC attendance and the likelihood of application acceptance and how this association was moderated by school characteristics. Among applicants, 23.8% (29,704/124,862) had lower CC attendance and 10.3% (12,819/124,862) had higher CC attendance. Regression results showed that, relative to no CC attendance, applications with lower (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = .96; 95% confidence internal [CI], .94-.97) and higher (AOR = .78; 95% CI, .76-.81) CC attendance had significantly decreased odds of acceptance when the 3 school characteristics were included. Each of the 3 medical school characteristics significantly moderated the association between an applicant's CC attendance and the likelihood of application acceptance. The negative association between CC attendance and medical school application acceptance varies by medical school characteristics. Professional development for admissions officers focused on understanding the CC pathway and potential biases related to CC attendance would likely be beneficial in terms of trying to attract and select a diverse cohort of medical students in a holistic and equitable manner.

Evidence That a Greater Presence of Latinx Faculty or Administrators Raises the Completion Rates of Various Cohorts of Community College Students

Only a quarter of full-time U.S. students complete their desired goal from community college attendance, with the rate of success even lower for Latinx students. This panel-data regression study looks for evidence regarding the expected influence of increasing the presence of Latinx faculty or administrators on cohort completion rates for all students, only Latinx students, and sub-samples of these two cohort types divided further by economic advantage or college preparation. We find that a one-percentage-point increase in Latinx faculty among full-time instructors or a similar increase in Latinx representation among administrators positively influences nearly all cohort completion rates.

Does Community College Attendance Affect Matriculation to a Physician Assistant Program? A Pathway to Increase Diversity in the Health Professions.

To explore whether community college (CC) applicants were a significant contributor to the diversity of matriculants to physician assistant (PA) programs and whether CC applicants were less likely to matriculate to PA programs than non-CC applicants. The authors used national data from the 2016-2017 application cycle. They categorized applicants to PA programs into 5 pathways: HS-CC (applicant attended CC while in high school), first-CC (applicant attended CC before a 4-year university), 4Y-CC (applicant attended CC while at a 4-year university), post-CC (applicant attended CC after graduating from a 4-year university), and no-CC (applicant never attended CC). The authors used Pearson chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis H tests and the appropriate post hoc tests to assess whether applicants in the 4 CC pathways were more diverse in terms of their race, ethnicity, gender, rurality, and socioeconomic status than those in the no-CC pathway. They used logistic regressions to assess associations between the CC pathways and matriculation to a PA program. Among the 8,577 matriculants in the 2016-2017 application cycle, more than 75% attended a CC at some point. First-CC and post-CC matriculants were more likely to be Black (P < .001) or Hispanic (P < .001) and come from a disadvantaged background (P < .001) than no-CC matriculants. After adjusting for applicant demographics, academic performance, rurality and socioeconomic status, and application strategy, first-CC applicants had 17% lower odds of matriculating to a PA program than no-CC applicants (P < .001). CCs are an important pathway to the PA profession, with 3 of 4 matriculants having a CC background. However, lower matriculation rates among similarly qualified applicants who transferred from a CC to a 4-year university than among applicants with no-CC background suggest that PA programs are missing important opportunities for increasing student diversity and thereby the profession.

The Importance of Community Colleges in Students’ Choice to Major in STEM

ABSTRACT This article investigates whether attending a community college is related to an increase in the number of students majoring and graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at four‐year colleges. We follow a longitudinal sample of students in North Carolina from middle school through college graduation, including some who attended a community college. Our multilevel models indicate that for our sample of students, who attended a four‐year institution and declared a major within 6 years of high school graduation, ever attending a community college and/or starting post‐secondary education at a community college have a significant positive relationship with their likelihood of declaring and graduating with a STEM major. Results hold true even after controlling for sample self‐selection through propensity score matching techniques. Our findings also show that the benefits of community college attendance on students’ likelihood of declaring and graduating with a STEM major are not restricted to only low‐SES students. Overall, this study supports the notion that two‐year colleges could work as means of helping push students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds into STEM.

What Does Free Community College Buy? Early Impacts from the Oregon Promise

AbstractThis paper examines the Oregon Promise, a state‐level program that exclusively subsidizes in‐state community college attendance. I estimate impacts using a difference‐in‐difference design that links students in states with essentially universal 10th‐grade PSAT coverage to national‐level postsecondary enrollment data. I find that the implementation of the Oregon Promise increased enrollment at two‐year colleges by roughly four to five percentage points for the first two eligible cohorts. In the first year of the program, the increase in community college enrollment comes primarily from students shifting out of four‐year colleges, whereas in the second year the program predominately increases overall postsecondary enrollment.

The Role of Community College Attendance in Shaping Baccalaureate Recipients’ Access to Graduate and Professional Education

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.

Community College Pathways to Medical School and Family Medicine Residency Training.

Medical students who attend community college are more likely to express intention to train in family medicine. This study examined whether community college attendance is associated with family medicine residency training in a national sample of US medical school graduates. We performed a cross-sectional analysis using the Association of American Medical Colleges matriculant files of residency trainees who graduated from medical school between 2010 to 2012. Residency specialty (family medicine vs other) was modeled using logistic regression analysis; the key independent variable was community college attendance, with categories of non-community college (reference); community college while in high school; community college after graduating from high school, then transfer to 4-year university; and community college after graduating from a 4-year university or as a postbaccalaureate. The logistic model adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, years in medical school, parental education (a marker of socioeconomic status), and high school US region. Of the 43,382 medical school graduates studied, 25.9% attended community college and 8.7% trained in family medicine. In unadjusted analysis, graduates attending community college while in high school, after graduating from high school with transfer to 4-year university, or after graduating from a 4-year university or as a postbaccalaureate (12.0%, 12.7%, and 10.8%, respectively) were more likely to train in family medicine compared with their peers who did not attend community college (7.7%). Respective adjusted odds ratios were 1.47 (95% CI, 1.33-1.63; P <.001), 1.27 (95% CI, 1.06-1.52; P = .009), and 1.17 (95% CI, 1.06-2.29; P = .002). Among family medicine residents, 32.7% of those who were white, 35.2% of those Asian, 50.8% of those Latino, and 32.7% of those black or African American attended community college. US medical school graduates who attended community college were more likely to train in family medicine, suggesting community college is an important pathway for increasing the primary care workforce.

The Community Colleges’ Role in Developing Students’ Civic Outcomes

Objective: Ideally, community colleges both democratize opportunity and develop in students the civic skills necessary to meaningfully participate in a democratic society. This national pilot study examines the individual and institutional factors associated with greater civic agency, capacity, behavior, and knowledge among students after at least 1 year of community college attendance. Method: Using survey data obtained from both community college students and administrators via a new civic outcomes survey and institutional questionnaire, this research utilizes both descriptive and multivariate statistics to identify associations between individual and institutional characteristics and behaviors leading to greater civic outcomes. Results: Holding students’ incoming characteristics and pre-college behaviors constant, this study shows that community college students’ academic and extracurricular behaviors, as well as institutions’ intentionality toward civic engagement, are associated with higher levels of civic agency, capacity, behavior, and knowledge. Contributions: Results of this study indicate that by making visible and measurable commitments to civic learning and democratic engagement on campus, and by creating opportunities for students to interact with one another, wrestle with thorny social or political issues, and engage in their communities, colleges can help create informed citizens who are skilled in democratic practices and committed to lifelong engagement. For community colleges, this is especially important, given their large population of students from groups historically marginalized in the nation’s education and political systems and their mission to both democratize opportunity and do the work of democracy.

The Role of Socioeconomic Status in Medical School Admissions

Socioeconomic status (SES) impacts educational opportunities and outcomes which explains, in part, why the majority of medical students come from the upper two quintiles of family income. A two-factor SES indicator based on parental education (E) and occupation (O) has recently been established by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). This study validates this two-factor indicator as applicable to the national pool of medical school applicants. The AAMC SES EO indicator classifies applicants into five ordered groups (EO-1 through EO-5) based on four aggregated categories of parental education and two aggregated categories of occupation. The EO indicator was applied to the 2012 American Medical College Application Service applicant pool. The authors examined the associations that the EO category had with six additional and independent indicators of socioeconomic (dis)advantage, as well as with demographic and educational characteristics and life experiences. The EO indicator could be applied to 89% of the 2012 applicants. The lower the EO category, the stronger the association with each of the six indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage. Other notable, but weaker, associations with the EO indicator were differences by age, race/ethnicity, performance on the Medical College Admission Test, community college attendance, and certain self-reported life experiences. The EO indicator provides a simple, intuitive, widely applicable, and valid means for identifying applicants from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. This affords admissions committees an additional factor to consider during the holistic review of applicants in order to further diversify the medical school class.

College for All and Community College for None: Stigma in High-Achieving High Schools

Background/Context In recent years, college attendance has become a universal aspiration. These rising ambitions have been attributed to the “college-for-all” norm, which encourages all students to aim for college attendance; however, not all students are prepared for the college application process or college-level work. Research Questions This research examines how students interpret the pressure to attend college, particularly four-year schools, when not all students have the same resources needed to negotiate the college process. The study focused on the following questions: What are students’ future educational and work aspirations? Is the college-for-all culture salient for them, and if so, how do they interpret it within the specific context of their high schools? How do they reconcile the pressure to attend college with a lack of economic resources, college knowledge, and college preparation? Research Design Qualitative methods were used to examine how students experienced the college-for-all norm and how this affected their college application behaviors and decisions. Semistructured interviews with 89 juniors and seniors were conducted across two racially and socioeconomically diverse high schools, and a subsample of students was followed over time to see how aspirations and plans changed and evolved. School counselors and other school faculty were also interviewed. Observations were conducted at the schools over two years, and a short survey was administered to students in the sample. Findings/Results The findings indicate that the “college-for-all” norm was interpreted as “four-year college-for-all” in the two high schools, contributing to the development of a stigma surrounding community college attendance. Less advantaged students displayed just as high aspirations as their more advantaged peers but were forced to deal with the community college stigma to a greater degree. Students developed a number of stigma management strategies that varied by race, gender, and class. Conclusion/Recommendations Social structures and inequalities can be reproduced by stigmatizing processes that tend to affect those who lack power and social resources the most. These social structures influence the ways in which people manage stigma, leading to multiple strategies that can both reify and question that stigma. The community college stigma can be problematic if students avoid such schools in favor of expensive four-year colleges that they may not be academically prepared for. Understanding the pressure students feel to attend four-year schools may help school counselors and teachers present alternatives to students in more positive ways and encourage schools to focus more on adequate college preparation, along with college encouragement.

The Community College Effect Revisited: The Importance of Attending to Heterogeneity and Complex Counterfactuals.

Community colleges are controversial educational institutions, often said to simultaneously expand college opportunities and diminish baccalaureate attainment. We assess the seemingly contradictory functions of community colleges by attending to effect heterogeneity and to alternative counterfactual conditions. Using data on postsecondary outcomes of high school graduates of Chicago Public Schools, we find that enrolling at a community college penalizes more advantaged students who otherwise would have attended four-year colleges, particularly highly selective schools; however, these students represent a relatively small portion of the community college population, and these estimates are almost certainly biased. On the other hand, enrolling at a community college has a modest positive effect on bachelor's degree completion for disadvantaged students who otherwise would not have attended college; these students represent the majority of community college goers. We conclude that discussions among scholars, policymakers, and practitioners should move beyond considering the pros and cons of community college attendance for students in general to attending to the implications of community college attendance for targeted groups of students.

Tuition and the outcomes of community college attendance: simulations for academic-program and occupational-program students

I estimate the impacts of higher 2-year and 4-year tuition on the outcomes of community college attendance. Higher 2-year tuition is associated with higher dropout rates in both academic and occupational programs and lower rates of terminal degree receipt in occupational programs. Dropout increases are especially large in late semesters and are stronger among men than women. Higher 4-year tuition reduces dropout rates in the early semesters of both academic and occupational programs. Much of the effects of tuition on academic-program enrollment disappear when including campus fixed effects.

The Benefits of Attending Community College: A Review of the Evidence

This article reviews the existing literature on the economic and other benefits of attending community college. First, the article reports on the earnings gains across all students and reviews the evidence for subgroups by gender, minority status, and credits accumulated. The article then reviews the methodological challenges associated with calculating earnings gains from attending a community college. Despite these challenges, the evidence for the significant earnings gains from community college attendance appears to be compelling. The second part of the article reviews the literature on a broader spectrum of gains, such as health, crime, and welfare reliance. This literature is very limited and potentially offers an important area for further research to establish the full returns from community college attendance.

Community College Attendance and Socioeconomic Plans

Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study, 1988 (NELS: 88), this paper documents differences in the socioeconomic plans of students in two-year and four-year colleges. We found attendance at a two-year college led to a modest but statistically significant disadvantage in socioeconomic plans. However, the impact of attending a community college on educational and occupational goals are conditional rather than general. That is, the negative impact on socioeconomic plans of attending a two-year college held for women but not men. Finally, according to our research, the negative effect of attending a two-year college differed in magnitude by an individual's tested cognitive preparation. In particular, attending a two-year college significantly reduced subsequent socioeconomic plans only for students with relatively high precollege test scores.

Baccalaureate Success of Transfers and Rising 4-Year College Juniors

Background/ContextA longstanding debate continues concerning whether community colleges democratize education by expanding enrollment or divert students from attaining a bachelor's degree. The extant evidence is contradictory, but recent findings suggest that community colleges are serving to democratize education without a sizeable diversion effect preventing students from ultimately earning the bachelor's degree. The diversion effect appears to be much smaller than previously stated.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of StudyThe main objective of this study is to compare the effect of being a successful community college “transfer” student instead of a “rising junior” in a 4-year college on bachelor's degree attainment (250 transfers and 790 rising juniors). This study examines the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) and institutional selectivity on the bachelor's degree completion of transfer students and rising 4-year college juniors.Data Collection and AnalysisWe analyze the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS:88/2000) high school senior class of 1992 to compare the degree completion outcomes of two samples—transfer and rising junior students—with equivalent degree aspirations. Logistic regression is used to estimate the differences in attainment. Interactions are included to examine the effect of SES and institutional selectivity. To address the problem of selection of students into institutions, we control for proxy variables for students’ motivation. In addition, a Heckman two-stage regression model is estimated using the average state tuition in the state where the student finished high school as the instrumental variable. Finally, to adjust for unobserved institutional characteristics related to the state where the institution is located, a model that includes a state-level dummy variable indicating those that have strong transfer and articulation systems is estimated to more fully control for state characteristics.Findings/ResultsThree main findings emerge from this inquiry. First, the negative effect of being a transfer as opposed to a rising junior diminishes substantially after controlling for differences in SES. The negative effect “disappears” in the sense of not being statistically significant, after corrections for self-selection bias and the addition of variables controlling for transfer policies in the state where the student attended college. Second, and consistent with prior research, degree completion rates increase with selectivity of the 4-year institution attended. Third, the results show that when we allow the effects of community college attendance to vary by SES by introducing an interaction term, there are no statistically significant differences between the completion rates of low-SES transfer and low-SES rising junior students.Conclusions/RecommendationsOur main conclusion is that previous estimates have overstated the diversion effect. Alongside other recent contributions to the democratization-ver-sus-diversion-effect debate, this study provides an additional piece of evidence demonstrating that the diversion effect is much smaller than was previously estimated. Community college practitioners should feel confident in counseling traditional-age students who want to earn the bachelor's degree to transfer, because the evidence shows that they are as likely to succeed as their 4-year college counterparts.

Interpreting the Influence of Community College Attendance Upon Baccalaureate Attainment

National quantitative studies examining the impact of community college attendance upon educational attainment conclude that initial attendance at a community college (as opposed to a 4-year institution) reduces the likelihood of attaining a bachelor's degree. Yet these studies, which suggest that initial attendance at a community college is not a rational choice for those seeking the baccalaureate, do not typically consider many of the legitimate reasons students have for enrolling in the community college. In addition, future studies will need to factor in recent developments in the community college environment, such as the emergence of the community college baccalaureate, growth in residence halls, and the development of honors programs.

Costs of attendance and the educational programs of first-time community college students

I use data from the State University of New York to examine whether changes in community college attendance costs yield different impacts on first-time enrollment in different community college programs. Evidence is strong that academic-program enrollment significantly and substantially decreases when 2-year tuition increases, but weaker that it increases when 4-year tuition increases. Occupational-program enrollment is less responsive to 2- and 4-year tuition changes, but more responsive to labor market conditions. These different responses translate into significant changes in the program composition of entering community college cohorts when the costs of attendance change.