Online Education in Community Colleges: Access, School Success, and Labor-Market Outcomes

Abstract

Chapter 1 provides the first evidence on the effect of online education on labor-market outcomes. I employ an individual-fixed-effects estimation strategy using data on over 100,000 community-college enrollees and show that students who complete courses in the online format experience larger earnings gains than their peers who complete courses in the traditional, face-to-face format. Estimates show large benefits to completing online coursework in the years immediately following initial enrollment, when a student may still be enrolled or may have just exited college. Estimates also show that earnings fall less during enrolled periods for students who enroll in online courses. These findings suggest that online education allows students to acquire college credit at a lower opportunity cost. In the long run, estimates show that there is a large, positive benefit associated with completing any amount of online credits but no significant dosage effect of completing greater amounts of online coursework.

Chapter 2 looks at the effect of online and hybrid instruction on students' course-level outcomes. Fixed-effects and instrumental-variables estimation strategies are implemented to remove bias and generate causal estimates. The estimates show that students are 9 - 13 percentage points less likely to pass an online class and 4 - 7 percentage points less likely to pass a hybrid class relative to a face-to-face class. These averages mask substantial heterogeneity, which is highlighted in the chapter.

Chapter 3 looks at the effect of expanding online offerings on the composition of enrollees in community-college courses. A course-fixed effects analysis is employed to generate estimates of the effect of offering any online seats and the percent of seats offered in the online format on the percent of enrollees in courses that have the following characteristics: working, adult, female, remedial, and financial aid recipient. I find that expanding online offerings significantly increases the percent of enrollees that are working, adult, and financial aid recipients, with the largest effects being found for working adults. I attempt to disentangle whether the changing composition of students is due to new enrollments versus shifting enrollments and find that shifting enrollment does not appear to be driving the results.