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Objective: This study examines the role of community colleges in closing the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by studying whether beginning at a community college improves the likelihood of female students earning their bachelor's degree in STEM. Method: Using nationally representative data, we apply a propensity score matching approach to reduce the selection bias associated with a prospective student's decision to begin at a community college rather than a 4-year institution. For each gender group, we employ a logistic regression model to estimate the influence of the community college pathway on STEM bachelor's degree attainment.

Results: We find that enrolling initially at a community college has a negative influence on students' bachelor's degree attainment in STEM for the pooled sample and male subsample. However, this finding does not hold for the female subsample, indicating that female students who attend community college before transferring to a 4-year institution are not less likely to obtain a bachelor's degree in STEM. Although additional analyses indicate that community college starters are more likely to drop out from a STEM bachelor's degree program, the impact only exists for the pooled and male samples but not for female students. Contributions: Considering the significant efforts community colleges have devoted toward creating a suitable environment for female students in which to thrive, this study provides empirical evidence that community colleges have the potential to narrow the STEM achievement gap between gender groups and provide significant utility for female students seeking a bachelor's degree in STEM fields.

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Purpose: The purpose of this article is to use Victor Ray's theory of racialized organizations (TRO), and multiple applied exemplars, as a framework and call to action for community college researchers and policymakers. In doing so, we provide a meso-level analytic view on how and why the most accessible postsecondary pathway for minoritized students is also the most chronically under-resourced sector of higher education in the United States.

Argument: Understanding community colleges as a type of racialized organization opposes traditional meritocratic perspectives that view these institutions as culturally neutral spaces, guided by open access and unrestricted credential choice. Decades of research suggest that egalitarian principles attached to community colleges do not necessarily translate into equitable student experiences and outcomes. Responses to these inequitable outcomes, however, primarily assign blame to individual dispositions. Without deep consideration of contextual conditions that shape organizational policies and practices, outcome disparities are viewed as a condition of cultural deficits rather than structured impotence.

Conclusions: This paper advances our collective attunement, as community college scholars, to organizational arrangements that perpetuate and weaken white supremacy. In short, we use a racialized organizational lens to think in new ways about how community colleges, as an institutional type, are often as marginalized as the students they serve.

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Objectives: In this study, we explore the influence of enrolling initially at a community college before transferring to a 4-year institution on the selectivity of the destination 4-year institution. Method: We leverage nationally representative data and a propensity score matching approach to compare the institutional selectivity between students who begin at a community college before transferring to a 4-year institution and those who begin at a 4-year college or university. To estimate the relationship between the community college pathway and institutional selectivity, we employ an ordinal logistic regression model. Results: We find that transferring from a community college to a 4-year institution had a positive influence on the selectivity of students' destination 4-year institution. More specifically, students who enroll initially at a community college before transferring to a 4-year institution have a greater probability of attending a very selective 4-year institution and moderately selective 4-year institution when compared with native 4-year students. Students who transferred from a community college have a lower probability of attending minimally selective 4-year institutions and open-admission 4-year institutions when compared with otherwise-similar students who began at a 4-year institution. Contributions: By showing a positive relationship between the vertical transfer and the level of selectivity of students' destination 4-year institution, this study highlights a potential benefit of beginning at a community college before transferring to a 4-year institution.

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