Increasing academic progress among low-income community college students: early evidence from a randomized controlled trial

Community colleges have the potential to be powerful vehicles for social mobility in the United States. They enroll nearly half of all postsecondary students in the US and graduates who earn an associate's degree increase their earnings by more than 30 per cent over a lifetime (Carnevale et al., 2014; The White House, 2015). However, the vast majority of students who enroll in community colleges do not receive a degree within three years. The barriers to degree attainment are multi-faceted and interconnected, spanning the financial, academic, personal, and professional domains of...  [+] Show more

Community colleges have the potential to be powerful vehicles for social mobility in the United States. They enroll nearly half of all postsecondary students in the US and graduates who earn an associate's degree increase their earnings by more than 30 per cent over a lifetime (Carnevale et al., 2014; The White House, 2015). However, the vast majority of students who enroll in community colleges do not receive a degree within three years. The barriers to degree attainment are multi-faceted and interconnected, spanning the financial, academic, personal, and professional domains of students' lives. We present the preliminary findings from a randomized controlled trial studying a comprehensive program designed to address each of these barriers.

One Million Degrees (OMD) is a non-profit organization serving community college students in the Chicago metro area that supports students financially, academically, personally, and professionally through last-dollar scholarships, skill-building workshops, advising, and coaching. Year one results from the first two cohorts of our study find that the offer of a spot in the OMD program leads to a 7 to 9 per cent increase in college enrollment, a 13 per cent increase in full time enrollment, an 11 per cent increase in persistence to spring term, and a 16 per cent increase in full-time persistence. For individuals that took up the offer of the program, effects were substantially larger - a 23 to 27 per cent increase in enrollment, a 35 per cent increase in full-time enrollment, a 35 per cent increase in persistence, and a 47 per cent increase in full-time persistence. These treatment on the treated effects were driven by students who applied to the program when still in high school. These students were less likely to take up the offer of the program than students who were already enrolled in community college, but outperformed their control group peers by a larger margin.

Published abstract.