In March, I wrote two articles about a research paper written by Kelli Bird, Benjamin Castleman, Brett Fisher, and Benjamin Skinner titled Unfinished Business: Academic Market and Labor Market Profiles of Adults with Substantial College Credits But No Degree. Their report looked at students who attended the 23 Virginia Community College System colleges during the 2009-2010 through 2013-2014 academic years who earned some college credits and dropped out for at least a three-year period after completing their last course. That number was approximately 375,000 students.
Readers of the Unfinished Business report were able to glean new findings about community college completers and non-completers as well as formulate a few questions about future research. Among the findings that the researchers noted were:
- Most community college students who earn some college credit never make it to the criteria of substantially completed (30 credit hours or more plus a GPA greater than 2.0).
- A high percentage of the students who dropped out experienced a significant drop in their GPA and credits earned in their last semester.
- Most of the degrees analyzed for an earnings premium over the cost of attendance did not provide a premium.
- The share of students who are academically prepared, earned credits at community colleges, did not graduate, ad left with a GPA of 2.0 or greater is much smaller than what policy makers estimate. Only three percent of this population could easily reenroll in fields of study from which they could expect a premium.
I thought the research in that report provided insights that have not been available in other studies. There were some nuances in the dataset (no student earnings data was reported for students who were federal employees, and no student earnings were reported for students who were employees of institutions headquartered out of state).
When examining the explanations for the drop in overall community college enrollment during the pandemic, part of the explanation relates to the decline in returning students. The Unfinished Business report provides some insights that were likely exacerbated by the conditions specific to the pandemic.
The other explanation for the drop in overall community college enrollment relates to the enrollment of new students. Coincidentally, a research paper that attempts to provide an explanation of new enrollment declines and is titled Limited Supply and Lagging Enrollment: Production Technologies and Enrollment Changes at Community Colleges during the Pandemic was released by Sarah Turner, a professor at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at UVA, and her co-author Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach at Northwestern University only two months before Unfinished Business with three of its four co-authors in roles as professors at UVA’s School of Education. (for those not interested in reading the entire paper, I recommend the following article published by the Batten School in March).
Schanzenbach and Turner, both economists, note that in previous recessions, community colleges have seen large enrollment increases in response to labor market downturns. Enrollment declines at community colleges were 9.5 percent between the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2020. That decline was nearly 15 percent for male students.
The researchers examine the types of courses offered in person by community colleges and note that during the pandemic, the lecture-based courses were easier and less costly to shift online than courses that require significant capital and “hands on” learning, such as welding and automotive repair.
Their study looked at community college enrollment records from a sample of seven states (CA, IL, MA, NC, TN, TX, VA) that represent approximately half of national community college enrollment. They focused on assembly, repair and maintenance courses of study that often use specialized equipment in lab or shop settings and are associated with above-average earnings among those with community college training. Their analysis showed that these courses experienced a higher-than-average decline in enrollment and these declines were concentrated in the male population. They also find that the entire male-female gap in the enrollment decline during COVID can be explained by the decline in enrollment in these courses.
The cost of instruction for these hands-on courses increased dramatically during COVID due to a decline in maximum capacity because of spacing requirements and a required, frequent deep cleaning of shared spaces.
The authors note in their conclusion that there are other factors that influenced student declines in community college enrollment during COVID, notably increased burdens on family created by childcare and home school needs and limited access to broadband and other online learning tools. They note that these factors do not generally impact male students and do not account for the large difference in gender enrollment noted during the COVID period.
Schanzenbach and Turner also note that there are substantial differences in costs across programs of study at community colleges, specifically between those easily able to be offered online and those that are “hands-on.” With the advent of public policies providing free tuition or headcount-based appropriations, the more costly “hands-on” programs that lead to higher wages are likely to not be expanded due to lack of funding or a lack of additional qualified instructors. This is likely to result in continuous excess demand in these fields where capital equipment and hands-on training are required. A positive development is that more simulation courses have been developed because of the online shift during the pandemic and that could, in the long term, reduce the overall cost of some of these high demand programs.
At the end of the interview in the Batten article where Lindsay Stuart Hill interviewed co-author Turner, it was reported that “federal officials have been in communication with the researchers about their paper.” This aligns with various reports over the past few months that the Departments of Labor and Education are considering additional options to encourage enrollment in vocational programs at community colleges. After all, if we have a scarcity in certain workers such as automotive mechanics, welders, and nurses, the shortage drives increases in prices and wages and leads to higher inflation. Providing financial incentives to increase enrollments in those areas increases the pipeline more rapidly than most programs because these are certificate programs generally requiring less than a year to complete.
While highly educated professionals may only read the articles indicating that America’s elite colleges had another record year of applications leading to a lower percentage of applicants admitted, those students represent a very small percentage of college students. Community colleges are our most affordable higher education options from a tuition perspective and offer many shorter-term certificates that require less than a year to complete. Call it the canary in the mine, call it something else, but if you are a higher ed administrator and you don’t pay attention to the enrollment declines at our most affordable institutions, you may find a steeper decline in the enrollment at your institution than you expected. The market has been changing and many more families and students expect less expensive tuition, shorter time periods to complete a degree, and a return on their investment of time and money.
