The Moving Missions of Community Colleges: An Examination of Degree-Granting Profiles Over Time

Abstract

Objective: Despite extensive debate about the curricular mission of community colleges, prior research has not sufficiently analyzed differences in the kinds of degrees (i.e., the field of study and award level) community colleges produce. Therefore, we explore both the fields of study and the levels at which public community colleges grant degrees and analyze how this has changed over time. Method: Multilevel latent class analysis is used here to estimate latent degree-granting profiles, and colleges are allocated into the profiles based on their observed degree-granting behaviors from 1987 to 2012. Results: The analysis shows that public community colleges can be allocated into five distinct degree-granting profiles over the period of study. A small minority of colleges have and continue to engage almost exclusively in a vocational mission. The two degree profiles that increased in prominence over time suggest an overall shift toward the simultaneous pursuit of transfer and vocational missions. However, a majority of colleges (68%) exhibited stable degree-granting behaviors between 1987 and 2012, indicating a relatively high level of stability in degree-granting patterns across community colleges during this period. Contribution: These patterns highlight variation across colleges and both stability and change within institutions over time. This suggests that public community colleges are simultaneously situated in strong institutional and technical environments and, thus, are subject to constraints and incentives that shape not only their stated policies but also their actual degree-granting behaviors.

Keywords

student outcomes degree profiles multilevel latent class analysis organizational change neoinstitutional theory

For over a century, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers have debated the degree programs on which community colleges should place their focus. Koos (1925), an early advocate of the occupational or technical mission, envisioned junior colleges as a buffer that would divert a “flood of inferior candidates” (Koos, 1925, p. 119) from baccalaureate institutions into terminal training in the semiprofessions at junior colleges. This vision, of community colleges as providers of a terminal occupational education, has been counterbalanced by proponents of the academic transfer mission (e.g., Karabel, 1972; Pincus, 1980). Still others promote the multiple missions for community colleges and reject a narrow focus on either training or transfer and arguing, instead, for the improved “coordination and integration” of missions (Bailey & Morest, 2004, p. 2).

In the midst of the debate over the focus of community colleges, historical scholarship has investigated the evolving degree-granting missions of community colleges from an institutional perspective (e.g., Brint & Karabel, 1989; Dougherty, 1994). More recent scholarship has analyzed institutions’ mission statements to evaluate what community colleges say they do (e.g., Abelman & Dalessandro, 2008; Ayers, 2015). Another significant body of research has explored how community colleges have shifted their occupational education emphasis from industrial education to social welfare (e.g., health and protective services), business, and information technology (Grubb & Lazerson, 2004). Despite this research, and the ongoing debate over mission, little empirical research has examined how community college degree programs differ across institutions and change over time.

To address the empirical gap in the literature, we use neoinstitutional theory to understand the environmental pressures and constraints that lead community colleges to grant different sets of degrees and change in different ways (e.g., to specialize or diversify) over time. We argue that public community colleges constitute a societal sector that is subject to both technical and institutional environments (Meyer & Scott, 1983; Scott & Meyer, 1991), meaning that community college success depends on two distinct requirements. First, community colleges must produce measurable outputs, such as degrees, to satisfy both policy makers and students as required by their technical environment. Second, community colleges must also adhere to institutional norms of appropriate practice while contending with competing demands from their external environment to maintain legitimacy as required by their institutional environment (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Meyer & Scott, 1983; Oliver, 1991; Scott & Meyer, 1991). As such, we expect that community colleges will elect certain degree-granting profiles (i.e., specific combinations of degrees at different levels and in different fields), and change or maintain those profiles, in ways that reflect their institutional and technical environments, local contexts, and stakeholder preferences.

In this study, we ask two research questions.

Research Question 1: In what fields of study and at what level (e.g., associate’s or less than associate’s [LTA]) do community colleges¹ grant degrees?

Research Question 2: How have the degree-granting behaviors of community colleges, in both field of study and level, changed over time?

We address these research questions by using multilevel latent class analysis (MLCA) to estimate degree-granting profiles based on annual degree completion data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) for public community colleges from 1986-1987 through 2011-2012. Using MCLA, in contrast to cross-sectional cluster analyses (e.g., Ammon, Bowman, & Mourad, 2008; Bahr, 2013; Hagedorn & Prather, 2005; VanDerLinden, 2002), provides the ability to evaluate how community colleges have changed their degree-granting behaviors over time while addressing larger trends within the field of public community colleges as a whole.

In answering these questions, we make three significant contributions to the empirical scholarship on the degree-granting missions of community colleges. First, this analysis sheds light on the neglected issue of community colleges’ actual, rather than stated, degree-granting behavior. Second, our results inform historical and contemporary debate about community college curriculum by showing that substantial diversity exists across schools’ degree-granting profiles that persists over time. These results highlight the importance of local context in institutional differences and provide avenues for future research. Finally, our findings of persistent diversity within and across colleges provide some support for our argument that these colleges reside in both strong institutional and technical environments; however, the stability of the degree-granting profiles over time suggests that further research is necessary to better understand how these forces affect the behaviors of these institutions.

Literature Review

The transformation of the community college degree-granting mission has been studied extensively (A. M. Cohen & Brawer, 2003; Witt, 1994). In particular, Brint and Karabel (1989) analyzed the historical origins of the vocationalization project wherein early community colleges tended to focus on either academic transfer or terminal education as they attempted to secure their niche within the higher education system. All community colleges, however, were subject to what Clark (1956) called an “enrollment economy,” meaning that funding and, thus, organizational survival depended on a steady stream of enrollments. Early in the 20th century, many 4-year institutions began to reclaim lower-division undergraduate coursework, thereby threatening enrollment at community colleges focused on academic transfer. In response, Koos (1925) attempted to establish terminal occupational training in the semiprofessions (i.e., fields such as commerce and agriculture, in which most jobs required more than high school but less than baccalaureate training) as a market niche that would enable community colleges to obtain sufficient enrollments for organizational survival. Koos’ vision faced two problems. First, most community college students at the time were interested in transfer rather than terminal occupational education; it was argued by Clark (1960) that the cooling out process by which some students were discouraged from pursuing a 4-year degree enabled community colleges to sustain enrollments by reorienting transfer-oriented students to terminal education. Second, employers did not value terminal occupational degrees (Dougherty, 1994), and as a result, the occupational education mission was largely ignored by employers and policymakers existing soley as a solution in search of a problem (M. D. Cohen, March, & Olsen, 1972). This problem was only ameliorated in the 1970s, when the baccalaureate labor market softened, and demand for occupational education increased (Dougherty, 1994).

Recent trends suggest that the degree-granting missions of community colleges have changed in important ways since the publication of Brint and Karabel (1989). State policymakers have increasingly emphasized the transfer function of community colleges (Wellman, 2002), and the proliferation of K-16 state data systems have aided states in evaluating the performance of colleges and universities against this metric and others (Hearn, McLendon, & Mokher, 2008; McLendon, Hearn, & Deaton, 2006; State Higher Education Executive Officers, 2009). State budget strain and the resulting increase in tuition prices at public 4-year institutions have compelled both state policymakers and students to view community college as a cost-effective entry point into baccalaureate education. State policymakers have also mandated the development of statewide articulation agreements between community colleges and public universities to increase the proportion of community college credits that count toward baccalaureate degrees (e.g., Arnold, 2003; Smith, 2010). These policies increasingly allow community college students to transfer both general education and occupational credits toward specific baccalaureate degrees (Seppanen, 2006; Townsend, 2001, 2002). However, not all occupational degrees are geared toward transfer; many remain terminal or have both terminal and transfer options (Townsend, 2001).

A second seemingly conflicting trend is that many community college occupational degrees remain highly valued by policymakers, who argue that community colleges contribute to economic growth by providing short-term occupational certificates. In essence, these occupational degrees alleviate skill shortages and attract employers (Grubb & Lazerson, 2004). For example, following the Great Recession, the Obama Administration advocated that community colleges expand vocational training programs—both short-term and associate’s degrees—in high-demand occupations in response to the economic downturn (U.S. Office of the Press Secretary [President Barack Obama], 2009; The White House, 2012). A third trend in degree-granting behavior is that the fields in which community colleges are focusing change over time. For example, most community colleges continue to offer courses in many fields historically associated with trade or industry (e.g., metal working, construction, mechanic positions, etc.). But they also increasingly offer degrees in health care occupations, information technology, and technical engineering positions (Grubb & Lazerson, 2004).

The Multiple Missions of Community Colleges

These recent, and potentially conflicting, trends reveal the pressure today’s community colleges face to achieve multiple goals, to be “all things to all people,” and to uphold “multiple missions” (Bailey & Morest, 2004, p. 35). Students, and increasingly state policymakers, demand an affordable pathway to the baccalaureate. Employers and other policymakers demand vocational training to meet skill demands. In addition, community colleges must also remediate numeracy and literacy deficiencies for an increasingly diverse student body, provide education and job skills to welfare recipients, and attain a host of other goals. Bailey and Morest (2004) argue that the pursuit of these multiple missions is not only inefficient but also negatively affects students. Nevertheless, we argue that most community colleges continue to pursue multiple curricular missions rather than attempting to focus on a single mission, because colleges fear that narrowing the scope of their mission could be a risk in their increasingly complicated environments.

Some recent empirical scholarship has explored community college degree-granting missions by analyzing institutions’ mission statements rather than looking at actual degree-granting behaviors (e.g., Abelman & Dalessandro, 2008; Ayers, 2005, 2011, 2015). Ayers (2005) found that community college mission statements adhered to neoliberal notions of curricular mission, emphasizing short-term vocational certificates that benefited statewide economic development goals. This highlights a continued emphasis on short-term vocational degrees, somewhat in contrast to the increased emphasis on transfer cited above. Drawing on institutional theory, Ayers (2015) views mission statements as a means by which community colleges signal their allegiance to goals perceived as legitimate by important external resource providers (e.g., state policymakers, federal policymakers, and firms). He argued that community colleges rhetorically shifted in emphasis away from “occupational and vocational education” and toward “degree completion,” reflecting a growing policy consensus about the community college degree completion and transfer agenda (Ayers, 2015, p. 201).

A related strand of literature applies cluster analysis methodologies to create typologies of community colleges based on what these institutions actually do, rather than on self-avowed statements about their behavior. The bulk of this work examines student enrollment intensity and continuity, course taking patterns, and demographics (e.g., Ammon et al., 2008; Bahr, 2010, 2011; Bahr, Bielby, & House, 2011; Hagedorn & Prather, 2005; Hardy & Katsinas, 2006; VanDerLinden, 2002). Of particular salience to the present study, Bahr (2013) used student-level data—from the population of first-time California community college students in 2001—to classify community colleges based on students’ educational outcomes (e.g., transfer, associate’s degree completion, terminal occupational degree completion, remediation completion, etc.). Bahr (2013) used k-means cluster analysis to identify five types of community colleges based on their students’ patterns of use: community education intensive, transfer intensive, workforce development intensive, high-risk intensive, and mixed use.

Overall, however, the scholarship on community college curricular missions remains limited. Recent scholarship often focuses on what community colleges say they do rather than what they actually do (e.g., Ayers’ work on mission statements). In addition, there is only a small empirical literature on which degree programs community colleges actually place their institutional focus (Brint & Karabel, 1989; Dougherty, 1994), with studies that are either dated or cross-sectional rather than showing how degree-granting behavior changes over time. Our research contributes to scholarship on community college degree-granting function and addresses these limitations by building on prior scholarship. We combine Ayers’ (2005, 2015) focus on organizational mission with a focus on the particular degrees colleges produce using data on what colleges actually do, like Bahr (2013), to develop degree-granting profiles and allocate colleges accordingly. Unlike Bahr, however, we focus on the educational outcomes (i.e., degrees) that these institutions provide to their students rather than the students’ behavioral profiles. In sum, we analyze colleges’ degree-granting behavior over time in both the degree level and field of study. In doing so, we first, adjudicate long-standing debates about the extent to which community colleges pursue terminal vocational missions, transfer-oriented missions, or multiple missions. Second, these analyses contribute to scholarship on how the fields in which degrees are granted at community colleges have changed over time by examining shifts in occupational education from industrial education and personal services to social welfare, business, and information technology (Grubb & Lazerson, 2004). Third, rather than relying on national averages, our analyses highlight the differences across colleges in their degree-granting behaviors both in terms of distinct profiles and how they have changed over time.

Conceptual Framework

To understand which degree-granting profiles community colleges employ and how these profiles change over time, we utilize neoinstitutional theory to understand the pressures and constraints these institutions face from their environments. We draw on neoinstitutionalism to argue that public community colleges in the United States constitute a societal sector (Scott & Meyer, 1991) consisting of focal organizations in the same domain (in terms of customers, technologies, products, core functions, etc.) and the regulatory, economic, and demographic environments that affect these focal organizations.

Organizations within a societal sector face both technical and institutional environments (Meyer & Scott, 1983). Technical environments are the extent to which organizational success depends on productivity in producing measurable, objective outputs. For example, a manufacturing supplier—who must respond to changes in technology and customer preferences through its products or risk organizational failure—is situated in a strong technical environment. In the institutional environment, conversely, success relies on the extent to which organizations adhere to norms, rules, and policies delineating appropriate behavior (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). For example, the K-12 education sector, with its difficult-to-measure outputs (e.g., student learning), and funding that does not depend on attracting customers, has historically resided in a weak technical environment and a strong institutional environment (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). In strong institutional environments where external stakeholders cannot evaluate outputs, organizational decision makers are able to respond symbolically to new policy demands without altering practices in the technical core (Edelman, 1992; Meyer & Rowan, 1977).

In contrast, organizations existing in strong institutional and technical environments must conform to norms of practice while maximizing measurable outputs. Rowan and Miskel (1999) argued that educational organizations increasingly exist in strong institutional and technical environments, because the proliferation of data systems allows policymakers to measure organizational performance in terms of outputs valued by policymakers such as test scores, degree production, and transfer rates (Hearn et al., 2008). Within higher education, the proliferation of performance funding and the increase in accountability pressures from external stakeholders signals a strengthening technical environment in which organizations find it increasingly difficult to balance the competing demands of their constituencies and stakeholders (Alexander, 2000; Barringer, 2013; McLendon et al., 2006; Oliver, 1991).

Building on Scott and Meyer (1991) and Rowan and Miskel (1999), we argue that community colleges increasingly exist in strong institutional and technical environments. As performance accountability metrics become more and more invasive, community colleges are subject to mounting pressure to demonstrate acceptable performance on outputs valued by policymakers (Tandberg, Hillman, & Barakat, 2014). Community colleges have become beholden to an enrollment economy (Clark, 1956), in which they must increasingly rely on tuition revenue (including federal and state grant aid that follows students) and state appropriations that tend to be tied to enrollment growth. Therefore, community colleges must demonstrate their value to current and prospective students in the local environment. In particular, as argued earlier, colleges face pressure to offer the degree programs demanded by students and develop sufficient enrollment capacity in these programs. The presence of these two strong and competing environments suggests that community colleges must respond substantively and symbolically to student and policymaker demands regarding their degree-granting function. In other words, they cannot buffer themselves by simply responding symbolically (i.e., by changing their mission statements) to external stakeholders and contexts as neoinstitutionalism would suggest (e.g., Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Westphal & Zajac, 1998, 2001). Community colleges must instead respond by changing their behaviors in ways that balance the differing pressures from their various constituencies and in some cases altering their technical core (Oliver, 1991; Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003; Thompson, 2005).

By integrating neoinstitutional theory with our review of scholarship on community college curricula, we develop three expectations about community college degree-granting missions:

Consistent with the idea of “multiple missions,” we expect most community colleges to concurrently produce a substantial number of associate’s degrees in liberal arts fields (i.e., transfer mission), associate’s degrees in professional fields (i.e., transfer and vocational missions), and LTA degrees in professional and technical/industrial fields (i.e., vocational mission).

Consistent with the variation in resource bases and stakeholder demands across colleges and the local nature of these institutions, we expect community colleges’ degree-granting profiles to differ substantially from each other in terms of degree level and field of study; additionally, we expect intercollege differences in degree-granting profiles to persist over time.

Consistent with our argument that the degree-granting profile of a college will change as its external environment changes (e.g., changing stakeholder demands), we expect that the majority of community colleges will change degree-granting profiles over time.

Method and Data

MLCA

To address our expectations and research questions, we used MLCA to group or cluster public community colleges based on observed degree-granting behaviors. MLCA was utilized here for two reasons. First, it analyzes the entire set of college degree-granting behaviors simultaneously through the estimation of latent degree-granting profiles, which allows us to see the full set of behaviors rather than having to examine individual pieces (Barringer, 2016). Second, whereas cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling only account for one level of variation, MLCA simultaneously models cross-sectional and time-series variation (Macmillan & Eliason, 2003; Vermunt, 2003). This identifies both the clusters or degree profiles and how schools moved in and out of them as their behaviors changed throughout the period (Barringer, 2016).

The MLCA model estimated here was a measurement model that used the observed behaviors (i.e., degrees granted in different fields and at different levels) to sort community colleges into the specified number of latent profiles based on similarities in their behaviors via a series of fixed and random effects (Hagenaars & McCutcheon, 2002). This model utilized the degree-granting behaviors of all of the colleges, across all of the years, to generate the latent profiles of colleges; then, it allocated each college to a profile at the different points in time (Macmillan & Eliason, 2003). In short, the latent profiles were static, and the colleges moved in and out of the profiles as their behaviors changed over time (Hagenaars & McCutcheon, 2002).

To determine the appropriate number of latent or degree-granting profiles that fit the data, we ran a series of models specifying different numbers of latent classes and used model characteristics to determine the best fitting and most consistent model for the data by comparing (a) the model fit statistics (Bayesian information criterion [BIC] statistics), (b) the proportion of cases in each profile, and (c) the consistency of parameter estimates, conditional means, and log likelihood statistics when running the same model with the same number of latent profiles more than once (Barringer, 2016; Raftery, 1995; Vermunt, 2003). In addition to estimating the latent degree-granting profiles, we also examined the colleges within the latent profiles by looking at differences in size, revenue streams, and location across the latent profiles to better understand the local contexts of these institutions, enriching our understanding of the profiles estimated by MLCA.

Data

Our analyses were based on annual organization-level data from the IPEDS Completions survey. We used this IPEDS data to allocate community colleges into degree profiles and then drew on the IPEDS Financial and Enrollment surveys to provide additional context. The analysis period began in 1987,² the first year of IPEDS data, and ended in 2012. This period encompassed a time of significant change within higher education generally, and within community colleges specifically, thus providing a substantial window in which to evaluate how colleges adapted to their changing institutional and technical environments. In this analysis, we examined community colleges, defining community colleges as public institutions that award associate’s but not bachelor’s degrees. Organizations were able to move in and out of the analysis sample over time as their degree-granting behavior changed. The analysis sample ranged from a low of 938 colleges in year 1987 to a high of 1,065 in year 1998.

Measuring Degree-Granting Behaviors

Because the literature on community college curricular missions (as terminal vocational, transfer, or multiple) focuses on field of study and award level, community colleges were categorized into degree profiles based on these two dimensions.³ Utilizing MLCA required a reduction in the number of dimensions of award-level and field of study because, like most clustering techniques, MLCA has difficulty incorporating skewed continuous variables and categorical variables with a small number of cases in different cells (Barringer, 2016; Hagenaars & McCutcheon, 2002). Therefore, the analyses utilized a two-category measure of award level, associate’s degree, and LTA degree. These categories represent an aggregate of three IPEDS award-level categories for sub-baccalaureate degrees: less than one academic year, at least one but less than two academic years, and associate’s degree. By collapsing the first two IPEDS categories into LTA degree, we ensured that our two final categories captured the key distinction between transferable and nontransferable degrees.

The IPEDS Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) taxonomy was used to identify the field of study for a particular degree. In the taxonomy, individual degree programs with six-digit CIP codes (e.g., 13.0406 is higher education administration) are categorized within four-digit series (e.g., 13.04 is educational administration) and then two-digit series (e.g., 13 is education). Within the analysis sample and time period, community colleges awarded degrees in 37 unique two-digit CIP codes. The combination of 37 fields of study and two award levels (associate’s and LTA) created a matrix of 74 cells. Because the proportion of total degrees awarded was low for most cells, we drew from prior literature to collapse the 74 award-level and field of study combinations into substantively meaningful degree classifications. Specifically, the 37 two-digit CIP codes were split into four broad areas of degree fields based on Levesque et al. (2008): (a) social welfare; (b) business, engineering, information technology, and science; (c) industrial, agricultural, and consumer sciences; and (d) academic fields (e.g., science and humanities). Table 1 provides a list of the names corresponding to each of the two-digit CIP code categories.

Table 1.

Allocation of Two-Digit CIP Codes Into Two- and Four-Category Degree Classifications.

Social welfare	Business/communications/computer science/engineering/science	Industrial/agriculture/consumer sciences	Academic fields
Education	Business management	Consumer services	Fine/performing arts
Public, legal, and social services	Engineering, architecture, and science technologies	Manufacturing, construction, repair, and transportation	Social and behavioral sciences
Protective services	Computer and information sciences	Agriculture and natural resources	Interdisciplinary studies
Health sciences	Communications and design		Letters/English
			Mathematics
			Science
			Humanities

Note. CIP = Classification of Instructional Programs.

Table 2 shows the average annual percentage of total degrees awarded in each combination of award level (associate’s and LTA) and field (social welfare, academic, etc.). The averages and standard deviations in parentheses shown for each category illustrate the non-normal nature of the distribution and high degree of variation across schools for all categories over the time period. Clearly, degrees were not allocated evenly across the different field and award-level combinations. For example, the percentage of degrees awarded in academic fields at the LTA level and in industrial, agriculture, and consumer sciences fields at the associate’s level were substantially lower than the other degree categories for all of the years shown.⁴ Due to the non-normality of these distributions and the uneven distribution of cases across categories, we created ordered categories for the degree profiles so that we were not subject to the normality assumption when including continuous observed variables in the MLCA model (Hagenaars & McCutcheon, 2002). For the six field and award-level combinations included in the analyses, we created a four-category variable representing the proportion of total degrees produced in that cell. This four-category variable used the following cut-points: 0%, greater than 0% to 15%, greater than 15% to 30%, and greater than 30% of total degrees awarded.⁵ The counts of schools in each of these categories are shown for selected years in Table 3.

Table 2.

Average Percentage of Degrees Granted Across Fields, 1987-2012.

Year	Social welfare		Business/communications/computer science/engineering/science		Industrial/agriculture/consumer science		Academic fields
Year	Less than associate’s	Associate’s	Less than associate’s	Associate’s	Less than associate’s	Associate’s	Less than associate’s	Associate’s
1987	10.27%	14.61%	9.42%	24.98%	11.40%	5.73%	0.30%	23.31%
1987	(14.85%)	(13.11%)	(12.43%)	(18.28%)	(16.35%)	(8.61%)	(2.84%)	(21.8%)
1993	15.06%	15.50%	9.13%	16.69%	12.65%	4.95%	0.34%	24.12%
1993	(18.41%)	(14.08%)	(12.35%)	(14.22%)	(18.23%)	(7.5%)	(1.55%)	(23.06%)
1999	15.27%	15.41%	8.86%	15.86%	12.87%	5.04%	0.54%	26.14%
1999	(16.41%)	(13.68%)	(11.37%)	(12.25%)	(16.75%)	(6.87%)	(3.66%)	(22.76%)
2005	18.22%	15.64%	7.56%	14.26%	12.42%	4.25%	0.83%	26.82%
2005	(17.22%)	(12.41%)	(8.58%)	(11.88%)	(15.87%)	(5.84%)	(3.87%)	(22.01%)
2012	18.93%	16.28%	7.13%	11.09%	13.32%	4.19%	2.52%	26.55%
2012	(18.02%)	(12.38%)	(7.56%)	(9.45%)	(15.42%)	(5.79%)	(6.58%)	(20.23%)

Note. Standard deviations are provided in parenthesis below the corresponding averages.

Table 3.

Number of Colleges in Each Degree Type/Percentage Combination, Selected Years.

Year and percentage ranges	Social welfare		Business/communications/computer science/engineering/science		Industrial/agriculture/consumer sciences	Academic
Year and percentage ranges	Less than associate’s	Associate’s	Less than associate’s	Associate’s	Less than associate’s	Associate’s
1987
0	263	187	181	119	255	212
>0%-15%	466	327	571	176	436	174
>15%-30%	125	316	114	305	130	232
>30%	84	108	72	338	117	320
1999
0	138	204	129	133	186	228
>0%-15%	514	364	725	416	561	178
>15%-30%	234	342	128	380	145	200
>30%	158	134	62	115	152	438
2012
0	57	123	87	116	105	146
>0%-15%	456	369	764	587	566	136
>15%-30%	275	362	103	239	178	291
>30%	183	117	17	29	122	398

Addressing Local Community College Context

Given our argument about the importance of local context to community colleges, and the nature of our expectations about how these contexts change over time, we also considered how schools in the degree-granting profiles differed in their financial, geographic, and organizational contexts. First, we considered institutions’ financial conditions to understand why there is diversity within and between the degree profiles of colleges. To do this, we examined the revenues of colleges⁶ across degree profiles and at the beginning and end of the time period. Second, we considered colleges’ substantial variation in terms of enrollment numbers by evaluating differences in enrollment⁷ across degree profiles. Finally, we considered that variation in state context may relate to differences across colleges in their degree profiles and also the expectation that a majority of schools would change their profiles over time. Therefore, we enumerated the occurrence of the different degree profiles nationwide and within each state in 1987 and 2012.

Limitations

As with any analysis, there are a few notable limitations. First, we were limited to the colleges and time period specified, and would not expect these conclusions to hold for other types of institutions or in other time periods. Second, we only examined three factors to contextualize patterns in degree-granting profiles. These three dimensions define key contexts and constraints of these institutions; however, including additional factors could better reveal how institutions’ degree-granting profiles are influenced by context. Third, and relatedly, this work is primarily descriptive; MLCA, as used here, does not evaluate causal relationships. Although we did examine contextual factors to provide additional insights on the degree-granting trends, it is outside the scope of the present study to assert that these factors, or others not considered here (e.g., competition from for-profit colleges and universities or economic events such as the Great Recession), may be causing the trends found in the analysis. Finally, the degree profiles estimated here are sensitive to the measures (e.g., award level, degree field) used to classify colleges. We evaluated a variety of model specifications using different degree classifications and cut points to assess the sensitivity of the models and are confident that the results are representative of the key trends in the field. Furthermore, we focused solely on completions in this analysis, and the classification scheme fails to consider or capture community college curricular behaviors that do not result in completions (e.g., students enrolled in noncredit remediation courses, students enrolled in contract training, etc.). Although this analysis provides a necessary examination of how community college degree-granting behaviors have changed, it by no means addresses the full scope of courses or programs that community colleges offer to their students.

Analysis and Results

Public Community College Degree-Granting Profiles

Based on a series of estimated models with between one and seven latent degree profiles, we determined that the best-fitting consistent model had five latent degree profiles.⁸ The column chart in Figure 1 depicts the five degree-granting profiles that community colleges utilized between 1987 and 2012. Two columns represent each degree profile: The first represents degrees at the LTA level, and the second degrees at the associate’s level. The height of each column indicates the average percentage of degrees awarded at that level for the colleges in that profile. The segments within the columns correspond to the different fields in which degrees were awarded. For example, the first column on the far left of Figure 1 shows that approximately 94% of the degrees in that profile, on average, were awarded at the LTA level and, more specifically, that LTA degrees in industrial, agricultural, or consumer science fields accounted for 36% of all degrees awarded by these schools on average.⁹

Figure 1.

Average representation of degrees granted within Public community college degree-granting profiles, 1987-2012.

The first degree profile, which we label the vocational LTA profile, includes schools engaged primarily in the vocational mission of public community colleges. The colleges in this profile grant an overwhelming majority of their degrees at the LTA award level (94%) and in the occupational fields of social welfare (36% of degrees at both levels), business and professional fields (25% at both levels), and industrial, agricultural, and consumer science fields (37% at both levels). This profile includes a majority of public community colleges in Florida and Tennessee in 2012 (see Table 4), including a number of Tennessee Technology Center Colleges (e.g., Crossville, Hartsville, Athens, Whiteville, etc.), the Ft. Meyers Institute of Technology, and the Mid Florida Tech campus of Orange Technical College. These are among the smallest community colleges, enrolling only 548 full-time equivalent (FTE) students on average; however, these colleges are fairly well-resourced, having the third highest total revenues on average in 1987 (US$12,492 per FTE student) and the second highest in 2012 (US$19,845 per FTE student; see Figure 2).

Table 4.

Percentage of Community Colleges in Each Degree Profile, by State and Year.

State	1987						2012
State	Vocational LTA	Multiple missions	Academic associate + mixed-level professional	Professional associate	Transfer + professional	Count of colleges	Vocational LTA	Multiple missions	Academic associate + mixed-level professional	Professional associate	Transfer + professional	Count of colleges
All states	11.9%	16.0%	19.6%	32.5%	20.0%	930	10.6%	23.0%	35.8%	25.3%	5.4%	962
CA	0.0%	5.5%	60.3%	19.2%	15.1%	73	4.8%	3.6%	89.2%	1.2%	1.2%	83
NC	1.7%	67.2%	0.0%	31.0%	0.0%	58	0.0%	55.9%	10.2%	32.2%	1.7%	59
TX	3.4%	25.9%	10.3%	48.3%	12.1%	58	0.0%	33.3%	50.9%	14.0%	1.8%	57
FL	17.6%	5.9%	55.9%	0.0%	20.6%	34	79.1%	0.0%	20.9%	0.0%	0.0%	43
IL	2.5%	5.0%	87.5%	5.0%	0.0%	40	0.0%	7.7%	92.3%	0.0%	0.0%	39
TN	31.6%	0.0%	5.3%	36.8%	26.3%	19	66.7%	0.0%	12.8%	20.5%	0.0%	39
NY	0.0%	2.5%	0.0%	70.0%	27.5%	40	2.8%	0.0%	5.6%	83.3%	8.3%	36
GA	48.5%	3.0%	3.0%	12.1%	33.3%	33	2.9%	71.4%	2.9%	2.9%	20.0%	35
MI	3.3%	10.0%	20.0%	63.3%	3.3%	30	0.0%	9.7%	41.9%	41.9%	6.5%	31
MN	41.2%	11.8%	8.8%	2.9%	35.3%	34	0.0%	48.4%	35.5%	9.7%	6.5%	31
OH	4.3%	4.3%	0.0%	73.9%	17.4%	23	22.2%	3.7%	0.0%	70.4%	3.7%	27
AL	33.3%	15.2%	12.1%	18.2%	21.2%	33	7.7%	42.3%	38.5%	7.7%	3.8%	26
WA	6.9%	6.9%	69.0%	0.0%	17.2%	29	0.0%	15.4%	84.6%	0.0%	0.0%	26
KS	24.0%	20.0%	4.0%	28.0%	24.0%	25	0.0%	32.0%	40.0%	28.0%	0.0%	25
VA	0.0%	25.0%	8.3%	50.0%	16.7%	24	0.0%	20.8%	29.2%	45.8%	4.2%	24
OK	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	33.3%	66.7%	15	47.8%	0.0%	0.0%	21.7%	30.4%	23
AR	0.0%	0.0%	10.0%	20.0%	70.0%	10	0.0%	50.0%	50.0%	0.0%	0.0%	22
SC	0.0%	27.3%	0.0%	45.5%	27.3%	22	0.0%	55.0%	10.0%	15.0%	20.0%	20
NJ	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	70.6%	29.4%	17	0.0%	0.0%	26.3%	63.2%	10.5%	19
LA	82.8%	3.4%	0.0%	6.9%	6.9%	29	22.2%	33.3%	16.7%	22.2%	5.6%	18
MO	16.7%	16.7%	33.3%	25.0%	8.3%	12	33.3%	5.6%	61.1%	0.0%	0.0%	18
OR	7.1%	14.3%	28.6%	50.0%	0.0%	14	0.0%	0.0%	94.1%	0.0%	5.9%	17
WI	5.9%	76.5%	0.0%	11.8%	5.9%	17	0.0%	88.2%	0.0%	5.9%	5.9%	17
KY	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	12	0.0%	100.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	16
MA	5.9%	0.0%	0.0%	82.4%	11.8%	17	0.0%	0.0%	6.3%	93.8%	0.0%	16
MD	6.7%	0.0%	0.0%	93.3%	0.0%	15	0.0%	0.0%	31.3%	68.8%	0.0%	16
PA	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	81.3%	18.8%	16	6.3%	0.0%	0.0%	87.5%	6.3%	16
IA	0.0%	35.7%	50.0%	14.3%	0.0%	14	0.0%	20.0%	80.0%	0.0%	0.0%	15
MS	0.0%	13.3%	33.3%	40.0%	13.3%	15	0.0%	0.0%	46.7%	53.3%	0.0%	15
CO	11.8%	11.8%	29.4%	29.4%	17.6%	17	0.0%	21.4%	78.6%	0.0%	0.0%	14
CT	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	52.9%	47.1%	17	0.0%	8.3%	8.3%	83.3%	0.0%	12
WV	33.3%	0.0%	0.0%	50.0%	16.7%	6	25.0%	0.0%	8.3%	50.0%	16.7%	12
AZ	0.0%	30.0%	30.0%	10.0%	30.0%	10	0.0%	54.5%	36.4%	0.0%	9.1%	11
MT	33.3%	0.0%	16.7%	0.0%	50.0%	6	0.0%	10.0%	20.0%	30.0%	40.0%	10
NM	12.5%	12.5%	0.0%	37.5%	37.5%	8	0.0%	44.4%	33.3%	11.1%	11.1%	9
NE	0.0%	12.5%	25.0%	37.5%	25.0%	8	0.0%	12.5%	12.5%	50.0%	25.0%	8
ME	0.0%	80.0%	0.0%	20.0%	0.0%	5	0.0%	28.6%	0.0%	57.1%	14.3%	7
NH	0.0%	14.3%	0.0%	57.1%	28.6%	7	0.0%	14.3%	0.0%	85.7%	0.0%	7
UT	0.0%	0.0%	50.0%	0.0%	50.0%	4	42.9%	28.6%	28.6%	0.0%	0.0%	7
WY	12.5%	0.0%	0.0%	87.5%	0.0%	8	0.0%	0.0%	28.6%	71.4%	0.0%	7
HI	0.0%	16.7%	16.7%	50.0%	16.7%	6	0.0%	0.0%	66.7%	16.7%	16.7%	6
ND	0.0%	12.5%	25.0%	0.0%	62.5%	8	0.0%	0.0%	60.0%	20.0%	20.0%	5
SD	100.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	3	0.0%	80.0%	0.0%	0.0%	20.0%	5
ID	33.3%	0.0%	33.3%	33.3%	0.0%	3	0.0%	25.0%	25.0%	50.0%	0.0%	4
DE	0.0%	66.7%	0.0%	33.3%	0.0%	3	0.0%	33.3%	0.0%	66.7%	0.0%	3
AK	0.0%	0.0%	9.1%	18.2%	72.7%	11	0.0%	50.0%	0.0%	0.0%	50.0%	2
IN	13.3%	80.0%	0.0%	6.7%	0.0%	15	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	0.0%	1
NV	0.0%	0.0%	25.0%	50.0%	25.0%	4	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	0.0%	0.0%	1
RI	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	0.0%	1	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	0.0%	1
VT	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	2	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	0.0%	1

Note. LTA = less than associate’s.

Figure 2.

Average revenue breakdown (US$ per FTE student) across degree profiles, 1987-2012.

The second degree profile, which we label the multiple missions profile, is significantly more diversified than the vocational LTA profile in terms of both field and level, making it clear that colleges in this profile engage in multiple missions (i.e., technical, vocational, and transfer). There is a roughly even split between LTA (57%) and associate’s-level (43%) awards within the profile, and in contrast to the vocational LTA profile, all four degree fields are represented. The occupational fields again constitute the overwhelming majority of degrees for the colleges in this profile (90%), with academic fields accounting for only 10% of all degrees. Most degrees for these colleges are relatively evenly split across the three occupational fields: social welfare (35% at both levels), business and professional (27%), and industrial and agricultural (28%). This relatively even split characterizes the degree-granting profile of all of the community colleges in Kentucky in 2012 (e.g., Madisonville Community College) and more than 70% of colleges in Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Georgia in 2012. Generally, schools in this profile have the third highest enrollment of all profiles with 2,315 FTE students on average and total revenues per FTE student of US$17,258 (Figure 2). Other schools in this profile include Central Arizona College (Arizona), Gateway Technical College (Wisconsin), and Wilson Community College (North Carolina).

The third degree profile, the academic associates plus mixed-level professional profile, is characterized by colleges that embrace the transfer mission of community colleges while engaging in the vocational mission, albeit at lower levels than those schools in the multiple missions’ profile. This is the first profile in which the majority of degrees are granted at the associate’s level (71%) and in which academic fields are the most prominent, representing 45% of all degrees on average. Academic and professional or technical degrees are relatively evenly awarded, with the latter being composed mostly of social welfare degrees (26% at both levels), with business and professional (18%), and industrial, agriculture, and consumer science (11%) lagging slightly behind. This profile encompasses more than 80% of community colleges in California, Illinois, Washington, Nevada, and Oregon in 2012. Some of the colleges in this profile include Clark College (Washington), Fresno City College (California), Blinn College (Texas), and Iowa Western Community College (Iowa). These colleges are among the largest, with an FTE enrollment of 5,281 students on average, but among the most resource poor, averaging total revenues of only US$14,845 per FTE student in 2012.

The fourth degree profile, which we labeled the professional associate profile, has a stronger majority of degrees conferred at the associate’s level (82%), which showcases these institutions’ strong engagement in the transfer mission. This profile is rather diverse in terms of the field of study; degrees are split relatively evenly between social welfare (36% at both levels), business and professions (30%), and academic (24%), with industrial, agriculture, and consumer science accounting for only 10% of degrees. Although these colleges are clearly engaged in the transfer mission, they can claim a vocational mission as well. Colleges in this profile include more than 70% of the community colleges in New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Wyoming, Indiana, Rhode Island, and Vermont. These colleges are some of the largest with the second highest enrollment (3,658 FTE students on average), but they are relatively low resourced (Figure 2). Some examples of colleges in this profile include Camden County College (New Jersey), Genesee Community College (New York), Sinclair Community College (Ohio), and Great Bay Community College (New Hampshire).

The final degree profile, which we label the transfer plus professional profile, represents colleges that most fully embrace the transfer mission and grant the highest proportion of degrees at the associate’s level (92%) and in academic fields (47%). This profile also contains the lowest occurrence of degrees awarded in both industry and agricultural (8%), and social welfare fields (21%). Overall, the colleges in this profile are relatively small (2,230 FTE students on average) but boast the highest revenues per FTE student in 2012 at US$22,444 (see Figure 2). This profile, unlike the others, does not account for the majority of colleges in any state in 2012. The states in which it is most prevalent in 2012 include Oklahoma (30%), Arkansas (50%), and Montana (40%). Examples of colleges in this profile include South Georgia College (Georgia), Leech Lake Tribal College (Minnesota), and Nebraska Indian Community College (Nebraska).

Changing Degree-Granting Behaviors

Before discussing the implications of these profiles, it is necessary to address how they have changed in prominence within the field of public community colleges over time. Figure 3 shows the changing prominence of all five degree profiles over time, as schools’ behaviors change and they move in and out of different profiles. As we can see, the vocational LTA profile, with its heavy emphasis on LTA degrees, has been a small but consistent player in the field, accounting for 10% to 12% of schools at any given time point and representing the second most stable profile within the field. As Figure 4 shows, 235 of the schools (or 68%) that started with this degree profile in 1987 remained in it in 2012.

Figure 3.

Changing prominence of college degree-granting profiles, 1987-2012.

Figure 4.

Mobility of colleges across degree-granting profiles, 1987-2012.

Conversely, the multiple missions and academic associate plus mixed-level professional profiles increased in prominence over time as schools moved into these two degree profiles from the other three. This pattern suggests a shift toward greater diversity in terms of award level within the field of community colleges as a whole. The multiple missions profile grew from 16% to 23% between 1987 and 2012, as schools shifted into this profile and only a few left the profile. Those that did leave, in large part, moved into the academic associate plus mixed-level professional and professional associate profiles. The academic associate plus mixed-level professional profile grew from 20% to 36% of the field as schools also moved into this profile from all other profiles. Only 22 colleges transitioned out of this profile once they attained it, suggesting that, once schools developed into an academic associate plus mixed-level professional profile, they tended to stay (Figure 4). In fact, this profile was the most stable overall; 88% of the schools in this profile in 1987 remained there in 2012.

Finally, both the professional associate and transfer plus professional profiles declined over time, indicating an overall decline in community colleges granting the majority of their degrees at the associate level. The professional associate profile declined from 32% to 25% as colleges shifted from this degree-granting profile to the multiple missions and academic assosicate plus mixed-level professional profiles. The transfer plus professional profile showed the largest decline, falling from 20% to 5% of the field due to (a) a lack of movement into this profile (only five schools that did not start in it ended the time period in this profile) and (b) a large shift away from this profile and into the multiple missions, academic associate plus mixed-level professional, and professional associate profiles (Figure 4).

These trends suggest, first, that a small minority of colleges have historically granted, and continue to grant, overwhelmingly LTA degrees (vocational LTA profile), engaging almost exclusively in the vocational mission of community colleges. Second, the two degree profiles that increased in prominence over time (multiple missions and academic associate plus mixed-level professional) were the most diversified in terms of award level, which could indicate an overall shift within the field toward the simultaneous pursuit of both transfer and vocational missions over this period. Third, a majority of colleges (64%) ended the period in the same degree profile that they started in, indicating a fairly stable field in which most community colleges make few significant changes to their degree-granting profiles. Finally, the substantial minority of colleges that did change did not follow a single pattern; there was no clear exchange between any two profiles or even between the two profiles that declined and the two profiles that increased in prominence over the period. In short, there was a lack of homogenization within the field.

Discussion

The long-standing debate over the degree-granting missions of community colleges has been extensive. Proponents of academic and vocational missions have developed complex arguments regarding the nature and consequences of the community college mission (e.g., Brint & Karabel, 1989; Koos, 1925; Pincus, 1980). Unfortunately, this debate has not been sufficiently informed by empirical analyses identifying how the enacted curricular mission of these institutions varies across colleges and changes over time. In seeking to fill this gap, we used MLCA analysis to address two research questions:

Research Question 1: In what fields of study and at what award level do community colleges grant degrees?

Research Question 2: How have the degree-granting behaviors of community colleges, in both field of study and level, changed over time?

Neoinstitutional theory provided the theoretical framework to understand how institutions might respond to changing contexts and environments. Specifically, we argue that community colleges in the United States reside in strong institutional and technical environments. These colleges must, therefore, adhere to institutional norms of appropriate practice while demonstrating technical efficiency in producing outputs demanded by policymakers and students in their local communities. In essence, community colleges cannot simply respond symbolically to their environments and stakeholders; they must also respond substantively.

Our results suggest that public community colleges in the United States are a diverse group of institutions pursuing a range of degree-granting behaviors that reflect the needs and desires of their local contexts and stakeholders. Diversity in degree granting behaviors across and within colleges shows that a majority of these colleges pursue multiple missions simultaneously, though to varying degrees. This suggests that these institutions are responsive to their local contexts, which is consistent with our argument that they reside in both strong technical and institutional environments. The majority of these institutions, however, did not substantively change their degree-granting behaviors over the period studied, which suggests a higher level of stability than we anticipated. This stability could indicate that these environments are not changing as dramatically as the literature has suggested. However, further analysis is needed to determine the causes of this stability.

These results provide some support for the three expectations we developed from neoinstitutional theory and the literature around the degree-granting behaviors of public community colleges. The first expectation focused on within-college diversity in degree-granting behaviors. Specifically, we expected most community colleges to simultaneously produce a substantial number of associate’s degrees in liberal arts fields (i.e., transfer mission), associate’s degrees in professional fields (i.e., transfer and vocational missions), and LTA degrees in professional and technical/industrial fields (i.e., vocational mission). This expectation was realized for three of the five degree profiles outlined earlier. The multiple missions, academic associate plus mixed-level professional, and professional associate profiles all have characteristics consistent with pursuit of both vocation and transfer missions. The vocational LTA and transfer plus professional profiles, however, were consistent with a focus on either the vocational mission or the transfer mission, with only minimal engagement in the other.

Our second expectation focused on differences across, rather than within, colleges. Specifically, we expected degree-granting profiles to differ substantially across colleges in terms of award level and field of study. Furthermore, we expected that intercollege differences in degree-granting profiles would persist over time. The first part of this expectation was supported by the presence of five distinct, statistically significant degree profiles characterized by combinations of degrees granted at different award levels and infields. The second part of the expectation, that this diversity would persist over time, was also supported by the persistence of all five degree profiles for the entire period. In essence, public community colleges in the United States during this period varied greatly in degree-granting behavior, and these differences persisted over the entire period. The differences across colleges in degree-granting behavior were mirrored not only by differences in their sizes and revenues, as described earlier, but also by the fact that different profiles were more or less likely to occur in different states. For example, if the pattern nationwide matched the pattern within the states, we could conclude that state context does not matter. However, in the case of this analysis, the overall national pattern (row 1 of Table 4) was distinct from patterns within each of the 50 states, which supports the importance of local contexts in understanding these differences. However, additional analysis evaluating causal relationships is necessary to fully evaluate the impact of context and to determine the contextual factors that are most influential in moving colleges into different profiles.

Our final expectation focused not on differences between or within colleges but rather on trends over time. Specifically, we expected the majority of community colleges to change degree-granting profiles over time. As the discussion above indicates, 64% of community colleges ended the period under study in the same profile in which they started. This expectation was, therefore, unsupported, because even though a substantial minority of colleges did change their degree-granting profiles, the majority did not. This, in combination with the strong alignment between many states and particular profiles, and similar change and stability patterns within states, suggests that the state context played a significant role in the degree-granting behaviors of community colleges. Furthermore, even though the average revenues in these profiles did change over time, they generally did so in relative lock step across the profiles. Both contextual factors suggest further research is necessary to explore how environments shape the behaviors of these institutions over time.

Overall, our work contributes to the scholarship on community college curricular mission, shedding light on the actual degree-granting behaviors of community colleges (as opposed to their stated missions) and how these behaviors have changed, or remained the same, over time. First, our results inform historical and contemporary debates about community college curriculum by showing the extent to which community colleges emphasize degrees at different levels and in different fields. Second, our analysis recognizes the diversity of community college degree-granting behaviors both within and between institutions, and establishes a foundation from which future research can evaluate the influence of local contexts in stimulating these differences. Third, our analysis highlights the relative stability of these institutions’ degree-granting behaviors despite substantial changes to their environment over this period including, but not limited to, the financial upheaval of the Great Recession, growing competition from for-profit institutions, and changing student demands. Finally, our results shed light on the strengths and limitations of neoinstitutional concepts such as strong institutional and technical environments for understanding community college behavior in the United States during this period. In other words, we provide some support for the argument that colleges are held accountable for both what they say and what they do, but we also acknowledge possible limitations to be addressed by future inquiry. Future research that investigates these colleges’ behaviors and their different contexts, in terms of both institutional and technical environments, will advance our findings and further evaluate the propositions set forth in this study.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Sondra N. Barringer is an assistant professor of Higher Education at Southern Methodist University. Her research agenda examines the interdependencies and internal dynamics of colleges and universities and how these factors affect the organizational behavior and finances of these institutions.

Ozan Jaquette is an assistant professor of Higher Education at the University of California-Los Angeles. He studies the organizational behavior of colleges and universities, with a particular focus on enrollment management behavior. His research examines the tensions between the enrollment pursuits of access, academic prestige, and revenue generation.

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