Institutional Determinants of Labor Market Outcomes for Community College Students in North Carolina

Abstract

Objective: The labor market success of community college students depends on both the attributes of individual students and the characteristics of the community colleges they attend. In this article, we examine the impact of community college characteristics on the earnings of first-time college students who enrolled in the North Carolina Community College System in 2002-2003. Method: We estimate multilevel models that incorporate variables representing institutional features of community colleges along with individual characteristics obtained from student-level administrative college transcript data, Unemployment Insurance wage data, and enrollment and graduation data from the National Student Clearinghouse across 830,000 community college students between 2001 and 2010. Results: We find that a number of characteristics of community colleges enhance earnings independently of the attributes of individuals. In particular, males attending community colleges in service areas with higher unemployment rates receive lower earnings, and students in colleges with larger enrollments earn more. Contributions:There are relatively few studies of how institutional factors affect community college effectiveness and those that do this usually concentrate on the attainment of particular awards or transfer rates to 4-year colleges. We address this gap by examining how institutional factors influence the labor market returns to community college participation. Our results underscore the importance of social contexts for explaining student achievement and success as well as highlight the need for much more research to understand differences in labor market outcomes of community college participation and the economic value of credentials and credits.

Does College Focus Matter? Explaining Differences in Labor Market Outcomes among Community Colleges

“…While previous research (e.g., Kalleberg and Dunn 2015) has shown contextual factors outside of the control of the college's administration but with which a community college must contend-such as population density and unemployment rate-negatively affect labor market outcomes, this analysis suggests that a college's mission focus-which is subject to the control of college administrators-also affects earnings. Our findings also have implications for policymakers who are grappling with how the higher education system can meet the needs of the citizens, communities and businesses in the future, and we believe, a thoughtful and proactive approach to the role of community colleges is vital.…”

“…Calcagno et al, 2008;Roska, 2006) and/or transfer rates (e.g. Clotfelter et al, 2013;Dougherty, 2002;Jenkins, 2007) to measure efficacy, relatively few have assessed efficacy in terms of labor market outcomes of students (Mobley, 2001;Mobley, 2002;Kalleberg & Dunn, 2015).…”

“…Research on the institutional sources of community college performance suggests factors that are likely to differentiate colleges (see the summary in Kalleberg & Dunn, 2015). We need to control for these institutional characteristics to determine whether other features of the institutional context can account for the association between the college's mission focus and students' earnings.…”

“…We build on research by Kalleberg and Dunn (2015) that analyzed the effects of institutional characteristics of community colleges on the labor market earnings in North Carolina. We note that our institutional variables from that study explain relatively little of the variation in ISSN 2377-22632017 www.macrothink.org/jei 199 earnings, after controlling for characteristics of individuals (about 1 percent for men and about 0.7 percent for women); the vast bulk of the variation of earnings lies within, rather than between, colleges.…”

The Relationship between Learning Styles and Academic Performance: Consistency among Multiple Assessment Methods in Psychology and Education Students

“…The analysis and assessment of learning styles has been viewed through multiple theories [9][10][11][12][13]. Learning styles can generally be defined as the different relatively stable cognitive, affective, and physiological preferences used by the learner to approach and internalize a content or to respond to a learning situation in formal, non-formal and informal contexts [11,13].…”