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Are Community College Students Increasingly Choosing High-Paying Fields of Study? Evidence from Massachusetts

Richard J. Murnane,
John B. Willett,
Aubrey McDonough,
John P. Papay,
Ann Mantil

The labor-market payoff to workers with associate degrees in healthcare and STEM occupations is very high in Massachusetts. We examine whether this induced a growing proportion of students in MA community colleges (MACCs) to earn an associate degree (AD) in one of these fields. We do this by using multinomial logit analysis to compare trends across 12 cohorts of MACC entrants in the proportion of students who earned an AD in a healthcare or STEM program within six years of entry.

We find a substantial increase across cohorts in the proportion of students who earned an AD in a STEM program, but not in the proportion who earned an AD in a healthcare program. We found differences in degree attainment by student gender, race/ethnicity, family income, and 10th-grade mathematics score. Interviews with MACC program leaders revealed that supply constraints hinder expansion of many healthcare AD programs, but not STEM programs.

Keywords
Community colleges, Associate degrees, Inequality; Multinomial logit
Education level
Post-secondary education
Topics
Pathways to and Through Postsecondary
Tags
Career and technical education,
College readiness,
Student supports
Download 10/2024
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/897f-0648
EdWorkingPaper suggested citation:
Murnane, Richard J., John B. Willett, Aubrey McDonough, John P. Papay, and Ann Mantil. (). Are Community College Students Increasingly Choosing High-Paying Fields of Study? Evidence from Massachusetts. (EdWorkingPaper: -1062). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/897f-0648

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