Investigating Why Academically Successful Community College Students Leave College Without a Degree - Research Findings - Survey-Based Analysis

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam

Investigates why community college students leave before earning a degree, including students who perform well academically and make progress. Survey data from former students in a large community college system are analyzed using multilevel regression with poststratification to better represent the original survey population. Findings attribute early exit largely to tuition and fees, living expenses, and loss of financial aid eligibility, with subgroup differences in financial and nonfinancial drivers. Results suggest targeted supports may help persistence or reenrollment.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Background on enrollment, completion, and community college constraints

Study Methods

Survey and multilevel regression with poststratification

Findings

Major financial drivers of early exit

Variation across subgroups and implications

Policy and Practice Implications

Targeted supports and reenrollment efforts

AERA Open January-December 2021, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1–17 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584211065724 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2021. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) Investigating Why Academically Successful Community College Students Leave College Without a Degree Justin C. Ortagus Benjamin T. Skinner Melvin J. Tanner University of Florida Even though a postsecondary degree can offer economic, social, and civic benefits, many community college students leave without earning a degree—including some who have performed well academically and made substantial progress toward graduation. To better understand the factors contributing to early exit, we surveyed a number of former students in a large community college system. We improve the generalizability of the survey responses through multilevel regression with poststratification, which we use to reweight the responses to better represent the population in our original survey frame. We find that tuition and fees, living expenses, and no longer being eligible for financial aid are the factors contributing to early exit for the largest share of students. We also find variation in both financial and nonfinancial factors across subgroups, suggesting that targeted supports may be useful in helping students persist or return to college and complete their degree. Keywords: community college, drop out, multilevel regression with poststratification, stop out, survey In an effort to increase the number of individuals who obtain the well-documented benefits associated with earning a college degree, the federal government provides over $120 billion on an annual basis to foster enrollment and persistence in higher education (Scott-Clayton, 2017) . Public colleges and universities also invest substantial resources to improve their retention and completion rates, particularly those institutions with state funding linked to institutional performance measures (Ortagus, Kelchen, et al., 2020) . Community colleges, in particular, have low completion rates (Snyder et al., 2018) and limited resources to allocate to retention and completion initiatives given their lack of public funding relative to 4-year institutions (Hendrick et al., 2006) . Community colleges can play a democratizing role in higher education by enrolling a disproportionate share of low-income, racially minoritized, and adult students (Bailey et al., 2015), but many community college students are unable to accrue the benefits associated with higher education because they do not complete their degree (Snyder et al., 2018) . Only 38% of students who began at a community college completed their associate or bachelor’s degree within 6 years of initial enrollment (Shapiro et al., 2017) . For community college students who earn a degree, the decision to go to college is associated with higher earningsin the labor market (Belfield & Bailey, 2011; Doyle & Skinner, 2016; Jepsen et al., 2014) and a host of nonfinancial benefits, such as increased civic participation, improved health, and a longer life expectancy (Doyle & Skinner, 2017a; Trostel & Chase, 2015) . Yet the majority of students who begin at a community college drop out of college and fail to accrue the benefits related to completing their degree (Snyder et al., 2018) . Due to the open-access enrollment policies and numerous curricular missions of community colleges, students enroll in courses with varying degrees of academic preparation and multiple coursework objectives (Cohen & Brawer, 2008) . Community colleges provide critical developmental education for academically underprepared students (Bailey et al., 2015; Bemmel et al., 2008; Cohen & Brawer, 2008) and mobility pathways for working or low-income students (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013) . Although most community college students who leave college w

FAQs

What motivates the study of early exit among community college students?

Although degrees bring economic, social, and civic benefits, many community college students leave without completing. The study aims to understand factors contributing to this early departure, including among academically successful students.

How do the authors analyze the survey data?

They use multilevel regression with poststratification to reweight survey responses, improving generalizability to better represent the population in the original survey frame.

Which factors contribute most to early exit in the study?

Tuition and fees, living expenses, and no longer being eligible for financial aid are identified as major contributors for the largest share of students.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam