Attending community college for at least one year and earning a credential there has been shown to provide a substantial boost in earnings for adults with a high school diploma or less.

This finding is based on a 2005 study that tracked the progress over five years of a cohort of Washington State community and technical college students 25 or older who entered the system with at most a high school diploma. The results of the study are consistent with those of other studies on the labor market returns to community college education that use data on nationally representative samples of students.

According to the Washington State study, compared with those who earned fewer than 10 college credits, students who completed at least one year’s worth of college credit courses and earned a credential had an average annual earnings advantage of $7,000 for students who started in ESL, $8,500 for those who started in ABE or GED, and $2,700 and $1,700 for those entering with at most a GED or high school diploma, respectively.

For more information about this study, see “Building Pathways to Success for Low-Skill Adult Students: Lessons for Community College Policy and Practice from a Statewide Longitudinal Tracking Study”: http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=204