@techreport{NBERw14367,
 title = "Do Community Colleges provide a Viable Pathway to a Baccalaureate Degree?",
 author = "Bridget Terry Long and Michal Kurlaender",
 institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research",
 type = "Working Paper",
 series = "Working Paper Series",
 number = "14367",
 year = "2008",
 month = "September",
 URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w14367",
 abstract = {Community colleges have become an important entryway for students intending to complete a baccalaureate degree.  However, many question the viability of the transfer function and wonder whether students suffer a penalty for starting at a two-year institution. This paper examines how the outcomes of community college entrants compare to similar students who initially entered four-year institutions within the Ohio public higher education system.  Using a detailed dataset, we track outcomes for nine years and employ multiple strategies to deal with selection issues: propensity score matching and instrumental variables.  The results suggest that straightforward estimates are significantly biased, but even after accounting for selection, students who initially begin at a community college were 14.5 percent less likely to complete a bachelor's degree within nine years.},
}