Labor Market Strength and Declining Community College Enrollment (2025)
Academic version - Working paper (coming shortly)
Abstract - Declining U.S. college enrollments have triggered questions about the health of the postsecondary sector. Using institution-level data, we make four points. First, such declines are driven not by the four-year sector but by two-year community colleges, which have apparently shrunk by over 30% since the peak of the Great Recession. Second, over one-third of this apparent decline is an artifact of some community colleges being reclassified as offering four-year degrees. Third, pre-Great Recession data shows a 1 percentage point increase in the local unemployment rate reduces first-time community college enrollment by 2 percent, suggesting many students are on the margin between community college and job opportunities. For-profit college enrollments are similarly countercyclical, while public and private four-year college enrollments appear acyclical. Our estimates suggest that strengthening labor markets explain about 60% of the post-Great Recession decline in first-time community college enrollment. Fourth, the marginal missing community college student appears unlikely to have completed a degree. Though declining community college enrollments are a challenge for postsecondary institutions, it is less clear whether they signal a problem for the marginal student.
School Enrollment Shifts Five Years After The Pandemic (2025, under review)
Academic version - Working paper
Summary version - Policy brief, EdNext (article)
Media highlights - Boston Globe, WGBH, EdNext (podcast), Education Gadfly (podcast), Yahoo News, EdSurge
Flaking Out: Student Absences and Snow Days as Disruptions of Instructional Time (2014)
Academic version - NBER Working Paper 20221
Summary version - Education Next
Media highlights - Washington Post, CNN, BBC, Slate, The Atlantic, Vox, Weather Channel, WGBH, Brian Lehrer, WBUR, WNYC