Misrepresenting research on community college returns (letter)

On April 14, Matt Reed released a blog site publish entitled “Ruling Out Accomplishment,” which critiqued my evaluation, “Is Local community College Value It? A Complete Return on Expense Investigation.” Reed’s critique is centered on a essential misunderstanding of the objective and methodology driving my investigate, and includes various outright falsehoods.

Reed complains that, in my estimates of the monetary benefit of affiliate degrees in liberal arts, I “stack” my success by not considering the returns on bachelor’s levels. But I have developed estimates of the returns on bachelor’s degrees, which are accessible listed here for group college learners fascinated in transferring to a four-year program.

But most group university pupils do not ultimately make a bachelor’s diploma and as an alternative quit out with an affiliate degree or certification. Around 10 percent of the U.S. populace 25 and more mature has an associate degree as their highest credential. Almost 14 million Americans have an academically oriented affiliate degree this kind of as liberal arts, but no better degree.

It is therefore vital to take into consideration the money returns on associate degrees and certificates on your own, and that is the reason of my examine. For college students who do not generate a better credential, I estimate that about 80 % of associate levels in the liberal arts do not create returns wonderful ample to justify their costs. That information is crucial for pupils looking at an affiliate diploma in the liberal arts to have, even if they do finally aspire to a bachelor’s diploma.

Reed goes on to make several fake assertions about the methodology guiding my analysis. I do not think “that most community college or university learners end in two several years.” In simple fact, I create estimates of the money returns to neighborhood school levels that account for these schools’ lower on-time completion fees. Contrary to Reed’s assertion, my details also counts learners who graduate before age 23 I merely believe that 23 is the median age at which associate diploma graduates start out doing the job total-time.

Most egregiously, Reed indicates that I are unsuccessful to take into account students’ lifetime earnings and asserts that I “only search at the 1st couple a long time out” of university. This is untrue. Although the Faculty Scorecard info on which aspect of my investigate is dependent do only file students’ earnings for the first two many years immediately after graduation, I use U.S. Census info to extrapolate students’ earnings all over their full careers. This extrapolation will make group college programs conduct much better on my return on financial commitment metrics, because earnings increase drastically with age.

Ironically, my analysis highlights a number of potent points in the group school sector that usually go unsung. For occasion, associate diploma courses in nursing give their pupils monetary returns that typically exceed individuals of the average bachelor’s degree. When I would welcome a really serious discussion about how to build on these strengths to revitalize our community faculty sector, it is regrettable that Reed has stooped to misrepresentations and accusations of undesirable faith.

–Preston Cooper
Investigate fellow
Foundation for Research on Equal Possibility.