Publications
Stackable Credentials: Awards for the Future?
This paper addresses empirical challenges in identifying stackable credentials, distinguishes three types of stackable awards, and estimates the number of persons who earn such awards. It then discusses the utility of these awards in meeting labor market demands and needs of students.
Model Specifications for Estimating Labor Market Returns to Associate Degrees: How Robust Are Fixed Effects Estimates?
This CAPSEE working paper reviews results from fixed effects models of the earnings gains from completing an associate degree and compares them with ordinary least squares model estimates.
The Labor Market Returns to Sub-Baccalaureate College: A Review
This CAPSEE working paper and accompanying brief review recent evidence from eight states on the labor market returns to credit accumulation, certificates, and associate degrees from community colleges using large-scale, statewide administrative datasets.
Estimating Returns to College Attainment: Comparing Survey and State Administrative Data Based Estimates
This CAPSEE working paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to provide new, nationally representative, non-experimental estimates of the returns to degrees, as well as to assess the possible limitations of single-state, administrative-data-based estimates.
Nonpecuniary Returns to Postsecondary Education: Examining Early Non-Wage Labor Market Outcomes Among College-Goers in the United States
Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, this CAPSEE working paper examines nonpecuniary labor market outcomes associated with different levels of postsecondary educational attainment.
Labor Market Outcomes and Postsecondary Accountability: Are Imperfect Metrics Better Than None?
This NBER working paper uses state administrative data and unemployment records to construct a variety of possible institution-level labor market outcome metrics to explore how sensitive institutional ratings are to the choice of labor market metric, length of follow-up, and inclusion of adjustments for student characteristics.
Goodbye to Summer Vacation? The Effects of Summer Enrollment on College and Employment Outcomes
Using proximity to the closest four-year college as an instrumental variable, this CAPSEE working paper analyzes public higher education data from an anonymous state to examine how enrolling in summer credits can impact college and labor market outcomes.
Understanding the Relative Value of Alternative Pathways in Postsecondary Education: Evidence From the State of Virginia
This book chapter replicates and extends analyses completed in other statewide studies and estimates returns to credentials and credit accumulation for first-time college students who enrolled in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) in 2004–2005 using a classic Mincerian approach.
Financial Aid, Debt Management, and Socioeconomic Outcomes: Post-College Effects of Merit-Based Aid
This paper utilizes two complementary quasi-experimental strategies to identify causal effects of the WV PROMISE scholarship, a broad-based state merit aid program, up to 10 years post–college entry and examine important outcomes that have not previously been examined, including homeownership, neighborhood characteristics, and financial management.
Early Labor Market and Debt Outcomes for Bachelor’s Degree Recipients: Heterogeneity by Institution Type and Major, and Trends Over Time
Using national data on baccalaureate recipients in 1993 and 2008, this CAPSEE working paper examines labor market and debt outcomes four years after students graduate, with a focus on exploring heterogeneity by institution type and major, as well as trends over time.
Classifying STEM Programs in Community Colleges to Develop a State-Level Middle-Skill STEM Workforce Strategy
This CAPSEE working paper provides a classification scheme for sub-baccalaureate STEM programs and, using data from Virginia, analyzes short-term earnings returns to community college STEM credentials.
Guided Pathways to Careers: Four Dimensions of Structure in Community College Career-Technical Programs
This study documents the specific ways that community college career-technical programs are structured to support student success, and it provides a framework for examining structure to inform practice and guide future research efforts.
Does Developmental Education Improve Labor Market Outcomes? Evidence From Two States
Using longitudinal student-unit record data linked to wage record data, this paper estimates the labor market returns to developmental credits versus college-level credits in two states.
Do Students Benefit From Going Backward? The Academic and Labor Market Consequences of Four- to Two-Year College Transfer
This CAPSEE working paper examines the effects of four-year to two-year college transfer on “struggling” students, or those who earned less than a 3.0 grade point average in the first term.
How and Why Does Two-Year College Entry Influence Baccalaureate Aspirants’ Academic and Labor Market Outcomes?
Using detailed administrative data from Virginia, this CAPSEE working paper examines how and why the community college pathway to a baccalaureate influences students’ degree attainment and short-term labor market performance.
Examining the Earnings Trajectories of Community College Students Using a Piecewise Growth Curve Modeling Approach
This paper introduces a piecewise growth approach to analyzing labor market outcomes of students, and it discusses how insights gained from the approach can be used to strengthen econometric analyses of labor market returns.
What About Certificates? Evidence on the Labor Market Returns to Non-Degree Community College Awards in Two States
Based on administrative data from two state community college systems, this paper explores the relationship between earning a certificate and students’ post-college earnings and employment status.
Weathering the Great Recession With Human Capital? Evidence on Labor Market Returns to Education From Arkansas
This CAPSEE working paper examines the returns to education for large numbers of young workers in Arkansas over the period before, during, and after the Great Recession.
The Labor Market Returns to Math in Community College: Evidence Using the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002
This CAPSEE working paper examines the returns to math courses relative to the returns to other courses for students who started their postsecondary education at community college.
The Impact of Co-locating American Job Centers on Community College Campuses in North Carolina
This CAPSEE working paper examines student outcomes at six community colleges in North Carolina that had co-located American Job Centers on their campuses.