Determining the Economic Benefits of Attending Community College

Book excerpt: Use of administrative databases has enabled higher education coordinating boards to assess the post-college earnings of students who attend community colleges. Some states have developed comprehensive methodologies for tracking the economic success of students in a variety of fields. Not only educators, but also legislators and the public, have begun to focus more attention on employment data as a performance measure for community colleges. This issue addresses the growing debate surrounding the use of such databases and presents case studies from individual institutions. The chapters discuss various state initiatives that look at student outcomes and institutional accountability efforts and they raise a number of questions. Is there a broad movement to connect accountability and outcome measures with funding? Would a national definition of economic benefit be helpful? How would economic benefit be measured? These are some of the themes addressed in this volume. This is the 104th issue of the Jossey-Bass seriesNew Directions for Community Colleges.