Graduates of for-profit colleges may have spent up to five times as much for their credentials as those who completed comparable programs in community colleges, but they’re no more likely to get calls back from potential employers, according to a new study published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.
In fact, the researchers concluded, the graduates may be waiting around just as long for the phone to ring as do job applicants who completed only high school.
The study was conducted by the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, a group that includes the American Institutes for Research, along with scholars at several leading universities.
The researchers sent out nearly 9,000 fictitious résumés of young job applicants who had recently finished a credential program in a community college or for-profit institution to see which ones employers called back. The jobs were in six categories: administrative assisting, customer service, information technology, medical assisting (other than nursing), medical billing/office, and sales. The openings were advertised online from May 2013 to May 2014 in seven metropolitan areas across the country.
The researchers’ conclusion? Employers weren’t any more likely to bite when the candidate listed a for-profit college than they would have been if the résumé had listed a community college. That finding makes community colleges look pretty good because they cost a lot less than for-profit colleges and offer many similar kinds of job-training programs.
‘It raises questions about the perceived value of these types of two-year college credentials by employers.’
But the research also suggests that someone might want to think twice before turning to even a low-cost community college for a certificate or two-year degree. It turns out that the high-school graduate who everyone said would be sunk without a postsecondary credential was almost as likely to get a call as did someone with sub-baccalaureate credentials from either type of college. The community-college graduate had a slight but statistically insignificant leg up on the high-school graduate.
So what does this mean at a time when there is so much focus on the importance of college?
Cory Koedel, an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Missouri at Columbia and one of the study’s authors, said the findings were surprising, but had been replicated by other education researchers.
“It raises questions about the perceived value of these types of two-year-college credentials by employers,” he added.
Steve Gunderson, president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, which represents for-profit colleges, said postsecondary education is “critical to addressing the skills gap.” He added that given the backlash against the sector, the study’s results could have been worse.
“The findings are actually encouraging,” Mr. Gunderson wrote in an email, “because after a six-year multilevel assault against the sector, the institutions are viewed on the same level as community colleges.”
“The outcomes at our institutions are strong and the results speak for themselves,” he said, in a reference to a post on the trade association’s blog. “Graduates who receive an associate’s degree in high-demand fields receive earnings boosts greater than 100 percent.”
A Limited Look
The study by Mr. Koedel and his co-authors was mainly intended to compare employer preferences for recent graduates of for-profit and community colleges. The fact that neither seemed to do any better than high-school graduates could be partly explained by a few factors, the researchers noted.
Maybe the for-profit graduate did have stronger skills that would pay off later in higher wages and promotions. That advantage wouldn’t show up in call-back rates, especially if the employer wasn’t aware of the differences between the sectors.
The results might also be different in occupations not represented in the study. Think air-conditioning repair or computer programming — areas in which for-profit colleges might have particularly strong programs.
Advocates for community colleges took issue with the conclusion that their graduates were hardly any better off than high-school graduates.
“A variety of studies have documented the fact that community-college credentials, both degrees and certificates, often result in greatly enhanced earnings for program completers, relative to those who possess only a high-school diploma, or, in many cases, relative to those who hold baccalaureate degrees,” David S. Baime, senior vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges, wrote in an email.
Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, said studies have consistently shown that community-college graduates earn more money and are more likely to be employed than those with only high-school diplomas. What really matters, he said, is the discipline the student studied.
This isn’t the first study associated with the American Institutes for Research to question whether college is worth the investment. Another study, which prompted heated debate, concluded that in some cases high-school graduates brought home bigger paychecks than did people with two-year degrees.
Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.
