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Does Taking a Few Courses at a Community College Improve the Baccalaureate, STEM, and Labor Market Outcomes of Four-Year College Students?

By Vivian Yuen Ting Liu & Maggie P. Fay

Nationally, 38.5% of the students who began at a four-year college in 2011–12 attended another college within the first six years of college entry, and more than half of these students attended a community college. Eight percent of students who began at a four-year institution took up to 10 credits at a community college during the same period. Given the number of students involved, it is helpful to better understand how this kind of postsecondary enrollment pattern affects students.

This paper considers a sample of “supplementally enrolled” students who began in and primarily enrolled in four-year colleges but who also earned limited numbers of credits at community colleges. The authors use student data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 and a propensity score matching approach to compare key outcomes of four-year college students who earned 1 to 10 credits at two-year colleges during their first three years at college with those of four-year college students who never earned credits in a two-year college. Many of the supplementally enrolled students took STEM courses at a two-year college.

The supplementally enrolled students had higher STEM and total credits earned, higher bachelor’s degree attainment, and better employment outcomes than the students who never earned credits from a two-year college. Subgroup results also suggest that supplemental enrollment can potentially improve STEM degree attainment outcomes, particularly for low-socioeconomic-status and female students.

A version of this paper appears in The Review of Higher Education.

Download CCRC Working Paper No. 122
July 2020
Download fact sheet
July 2020
View journal article (subscription may be required)
July 2022
View related blog post
July 2020
  • Next Frontier Guided Pathways Research: Studying the Effects of Pathways Reforms

Related Publications

February 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

June 2016

Do Students Benefit From Going Backward? The Academic and Labor Market Consequences of Four- to Two-Year College Transfer

Additional Resources

For more policy briefs and fact sheets, visit CCRC’s Policy Resources page.

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