Job Market Paper
Degrees within Reach: Who Benefits from Community College Baccalaureate Introduction?
Abstract
Twenty-four states currently allow community colleges to award bachelor's degrees (BAs), but there is little causal evidence as to whether these programs expand access to the BA or simply shift enrollment across institutions. Using longitudinal administrative data and the staggered rollout of programs across Washington state, I estimate the effect of community college baccalaureate (CCB) introduction on degree attainment and earnings. CCB introduction increases overall BA completion, but this aggregate effect masks substantial heterogeneity in who benefits and which programs work. Students predicted to otherwise enroll in two-year colleges see gains in bachelor's and graduate degree attainment with suggestively positive effects on earnings, while those likely to attend four-year institutions absent CCB introduction see null to negative effects on the same outcomes. Openings in fields such as nursing and computer science, where seats at four-year institutions are rationed through competitive major admissions, drive these completion and earnings gains, while openings in effectively open-access fields generate null effects. Taken together, these results suggest that CCB programs generate the largest benefits where existing constraints on bachelor's degree attainment bind, whether at the student or the program level.
Working Papers
The Labor Market Value of Community College Bachelor’s Degrees: Initial Evidence from a Resume Audit Study in Early Childhood Education (with Riley Acton ⓡ, Camila Morales ⓡ, Lois Miller ⓡ, Kalena Cortes ⓡ)
Abstract
Community colleges are more financially, academically, and geographically accessible than four-year institutions. Yet despite most community college students intending to earn a bachelor’s degree, few successfully transfer and complete one. Community College Baccalaureate (CCB) programs have emerged as an alternative pathway, allowing community colleges to confer bachelor’s degrees directly. However, little is known about how employers value these credentials in the labor market. To address this question, we conduct the first resume audit study of CCB degrees, submitting fictitious applications to real job vacancies while experimentally varying applicants’ educational credentials, degree-granting institutions, and demographic signals. In this pilot study, we focus on the early childhood education (ECE) labor market, a rapidly growing CCB field characterized by labor shortages and increasing educational requirements. We find that employers view CCB degrees similarly to both traditional bachelor’s and associate degrees, with statistically indistinguishable interview-request rates across degree types. A text analysis of employer callback messages reveals little evidence that employers communicate differently with CCB applicants, while a net-price simulation suggests that sticker-price comparisons substantially overstate the affordability advantage of CCB programs. Together, these findings provide new evidence on the labor market value and affordability of CCB degrees and inform an ongoing large-scale audit study across additional fields and labor markets.
Presented at: Minneapolis Fed Opportunity for Inclusive Growth Institute's Early Career Workshop (Miller), APPAM 2025 (Turner), AEFP 2026 (Miller), Upjohn Insititue (Cortes)
Apprenticeship and Postsecondary Education are Intertwined: New Evidence on Apprenticeship Pathways in the United States (with Rajeev Darolia, Lora Dufrense, and Tomás E. Monarrez)
[ FRBP 26-02 ]
Abstract
We use a large sample of online job postings and individual worker profiles to study apprenticeship in the United States. Counter to a view where apprenticeship and postsecondary education are substitutes, we find that these skill-building pathways are deeply intertwined for many: Nearly half of apprentices start their apprenticeships having already attended some college, and about 32 percent of apprentices arrive with prior college credentials. Similarly, about 40 percent of apprentices who started their apprenticeships with no prior education ultimately attain a bachelor’s degree or higher. Pathways vary considerably across fields: Apprentices in the trades typically enter with little aligned prior education, suggesting that many of these students are using the apprenticeship to break into a new field. Apprentices in white-collar occupations, however, more often arrive already embedded in the relevant domain, suggesting that they use apprenticeship to deepen skills within an existing career trajectory. For many participants, apprenticeship serves as an intermediate step in a longer postsecondary trajectory, which carries important implications for the evaluation of apprenticeship programs within the broader postsecondary education system.
Community College Bachelor’s Degrees: How CCB Graduates’ Earnings Compare to AAs and BAs (with Riley Acton ⓡ, Camila Morales ⓡ, Kalena Cortes ⓡ, and Lois Miller ⓡ)
[ NBER WP No. 34684 · NBER Digest · PSEO Report · Brookings Chalkboard ]
Abstract
We provide the first descriptive analysis of the economic value of Community College Baccalaureate (CCB) degrees by examining graduates' early-career earnings, the costs of completing these programs, and the alignment between field of study and subsequent employment. Using administrative data and controlling for institution and field, we find that CCB graduates earn $4,000 to $9,000 more annually than Associate's (AA) degree holders one year after graduation but experience average earnings penalties of roughly $2,000 relative to traditional Bachelor's (BA) recipients. These averages mask substantial heterogeneity: penalties are largest in Computer and Information Technology and Engineering Technology, whereas CCB graduates in Nursing, other Healthcare fields, Business, and Criminal Justice exhibit minimal or no penalties. To contextualize these returns, we analyze tuition and fee structures across CCB-granting institutions and identify two dominant pricing models—constant and escalating. Total CCB program costs fall between those of AA and BA degrees, with escalating structures increasing upper-division prices by about 40 percent. Finally, we examine field-to-industry match patterns and find that CCB graduates in fields with well-defined occupational pathways, such as Health Professions and Education, are highly concentrated in aligned industries, while graduates in more diffuse fields, such as Computer Science, are more broadly dispersed.
Presented at: MidSouth Education Policy Workshop (Turner), AEFP 2026 (Turner)
Universal Pre-K as Economic Stimulus: Evidence from Nine States and Large Cities in the U.S. (with Kirabo Jackson and Jacob Bastian) Under Review
Abstract
While Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) is known to increase maternal labor supply, its broader labor market effects remain understudied. We analyze UPK programs implemented across nine states and cities between 1995 and 2019, exploiting staggered adoption for identification. In conservative specifications, UPK increased Pre-K enrollment by about 10 percentage points and raised labor force participation, employment, and hours worked by roughly 1 percent. Employment effects were largest for mothers (who account for about one-fifth of the total effect) but extended to other groups, especially women. Among adults without young children, effects are strongest for groups that, based on time use data, spend significant time caring for young children—consistent with UPK inducing increased employment among informal child care providers. Impacts vary across settings, with the largest effects in areas providing at least five hours of care per day. UPK increased aggregate earnings by about 0.6% overall, with each dollar spent generating roughly four dollars in additional earnings; this rises to 3%, corresponding to thirteen dollars per dollar spent, for expansions providing five or more hours of care. Accounting for state tax revenue alone, state Marginal Values of Public Funds (MVPF) range from 0.65 to 1.31, while the social MVPF, which also accounts for induced federal tax revenue, ranges from 1.77 to 3.53 across all programs and is infinite for full-time programs that generate sufficient state and federal tax revenue to fully pay for themselves. Results suggest that labor market responses beyond the canonical model that focuses on parents alone lead to sizable economic returns to early childhood education investments.
Presented at: NBER Summer Institute 2025 (Jackson)
Theoretical foundations of the minimum wage and post-secondary investment
Abstract
Building on canonical models of human capital investment, this paper explores the potential of the minimum wage to impact college enrollment decisions by shifting both the wage premium and the opportunity cost associated with post-secondary investment. Whereas existing literature presents conflicting evidence on enrollment responses across two- and four-year institutions, I present a unifying framework with which to make sense of these effects. Using national post-secondary enrollment data from IPEDS and wage data from the CPS, I show that the extent to which these parameters are shifted by a changing minimum wage is a function of prevailing wage distributions in the year before a minimum wage change occurs and, specifically, who is bound by the new minimum wage. Guided by my theoretical framework, I use variation in state-level minimum wage changes to size the determinants of enrollment responses to individual changes across years and states. I show that states in which higher shares of high school graduates are bound by the minimum wage are those most likely to experience large enrollment declines at community colleges in response to an increasing minimum wage. Finally, I use my framework to consolidate conflicting estimates from the existing literature.
Presented at: IZA Summer School (Berlin, July 2023)
Publications
Apprenticeships in the United States: Emerging Opportunities and Evidence Gaps (with Rajeev Darolia)
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (Policy Brief)
Raising state minimum wages, lowering community college enrollment (with Diane Schanzenbach and Sarah Turner)
Review of Economics and Statistics
Works in Progress
- Estimating the Value of a New Postsecondary Credential: An Audit Study of Community College Bachelor’s Degrees (with Riley Acton, Kalena Cortes, Lois Miller, and Camila Morales)
- Understanding Student Debt Relief: Insights from SAVE
- Moving Forward and Staying in Place: Choosing the Community College Baccalaureate
- Gender Gaps in Student Loan Repayment (with Meredith Welch)
Policy Briefs and Other Writing
Study Guide: Public Service Loan Forgiveness (with Kathryn Blanchard)
Debt and Earnings in Graduate School: Moving Beyond Standard Measures for the Typical Student in the Short Term (with CJ Libassi)
Educational institutions poised to meet the workforce generated by the Investing in America agenda (with Matthew Guzman, Shaun Dougherty, and Rajeev Darolia)
A First Look at 2024-2025 FAFSA Race and Ethnicity Data (with Brent Evans and Rajeev Darolia)
Where Do Borrowers Who Benefit from Public Service Loan Forgiveness Work? (with Kathryn Blanchard and Rajeev Darolia)