NBER Study: Employers Don’t Penalize Community College Bachelor’s Degrees In Hiring

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ORANGE, CALIFORNIA - Strenger Plaza on the campus of Santiago Canyon College.

Employers responded the same way to job applicants holding bachelor's degrees from community colleges as they did to applicants with degrees from traditional four-year universities, according to a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Researchers from Bowdoin College, Texas A&M, Northwestern, the University of Texas at Dallas, and the University of South Carolina submitted 4,698 fictitious resumes to 1,570 real early childhood education job postings in Texas and Washington over 17 weeks.

The resumes had comparable work histories and differed mainly in the credential listed: an associate degree, a community college baccalaureate (CCB), or a bachelor's degree from a four-year institution.

The results? No noticeable difference in hiring.

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Why It Matters

Community college bachelor's degrees are spreading quickly and community college enrollment itself is climbing, led by traditional college-age students. But until now there was almost no experimental evidence on whether employers take these degrees seriously. This is the first study to test the question, and employers showed no measurable preference among the three degree types.

By The Numbers

24 states now allow community colleges to award bachelor's degrees.The share of community colleges offering them grew from 2.1% in 2004 to 16.5% in 2022, and annual degrees awarded more than quadrupled, from 3,327 to 16,059.Roughly 22% of applicants received an interview request, regardless of degree type. Another 10% received a request for more information.Only 13% of the job postings required a bachelor's degree.

In an accompanying survey, employers said experience, personality, and reliability drive hiring decisions. Texas employers were somewhat more likely to ask CCB applicants for additional details about their credentials, a pattern not seen in Washington, where nearly 90% of community colleges offer at least one bachelor's degree, compared with just over 30% in Texas.

Key Caveat

This is a pilot study in a single field marked by persistent labor shortages, and most of the postings didn't require a bachelor's degree at all. The results may not carry over to occupations where a degree works as a hard screening requirement. Also, this paper is a working paper and has not been peer-reviewed.

The study also challenges one selling point of these programs: the savings of going to a community college versus a traditional four year school. The researchers' net-price simulation found that once grant aid is counted, some students would pay more per year at a community college than at a four-year institution. This is a reminder that what families actually pay after financial aid often looks nothing like the published price.

How This Connects

The findings arrive as colleges rethink the standard bachelor's path from several directions. Nearly 60 colleges are building three-year, 90-credit bachelor's degrees that cut costs roughly 25%, and Cal State approved shortened degree types across its 22 campuses, though faculty unions have pushed back on the shortened format.

Community college bachelor's degrees attack the same problem (cost and access) by changing where the degree is earned rather than how long it takes.

Both ideas rest on the same bet: that employers care about the credential, not the pathway. This study is the first controlled evidence that, at least in one field, the bet is holding.

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