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On April 14, Matt Reed published a blog post entitled “Ruling Out Success,” which critiqued my analysis, “Is Community College Worth It? A Comprehensive Return on Investment Analysis.” Reed’s critique is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose and methodology behind my research, and contains multiple outright falsehoods.
Reed complains that, in my estimates of the financial value of associate degrees in liberal arts, I “stack” my results by not considering the returns on bachelor’s degrees. But I have produced estimates of the returns on bachelor’s degrees, which are available here for community college students interested in transferring to a four-year program.
But most community college students do not eventually earn a bachelor’s degree and instead stop out with an associate degree or certificate. Over 10 percent of the U.S. population 25 and older has an associate degree as their highest credential. Nearly 14 million Americans have an academically oriented associate degree such as liberal arts, but no higher degree.
It is therefore important to consider the financial returns on associate degrees and certificates alone, and that is the purpose of my study. For students who do not earn a higher credential, I estimate that over 80 percent of associate degrees in the liberal arts do not produce returns great enough to justify their costs. That information is critical for students considering an associate degree in the liberal arts to have, even if they do eventually aspire to a bachelor’s degree.
Reed goes on to make several false assertions about the methodology behind my research. I do not assume “that most community college students finish in two years.” In fact, I produce estimates of the financial returns to community college degrees that account for these schools’ low on-time completion rates. Contrary to Reed’s assertion, my data also counts students who graduate before age 23; I simply assume that 23 is the median age at which associate degree graduates start working full-time.
Most egregiously, Reed implies that I fail to consider students’ lifetime earnings and asserts that I “only look at the first couple years out” of college. This is untrue. While the College Scorecard data on which part of my research is based do only record students’ earnings for the first two years after graduation, I use U.S. Census data to extrapolate students’ earnings throughout their entire careers. This extrapolation makes community college programs perform better on my return on investment metrics, since earnings rise significantly with age.
Ironically, my research highlights several strong points in the community college sector that often go unsung. For instance, associate degree programs in nursing offer their students financial returns that often exceed those of the average bachelor’s degree. While I would welcome a serious conversation about how to build on these strengths to revitalize our community college sector, it’s unfortunate that Reed has stooped to misrepresentations and accusations of bad faith.
--Preston Cooper
Research fellow
Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.
