Community Colleges and Local Economic Development: A Quasi Experimental Control Group Analysis

Abstract: Community colleges are an important and growing segment of the U.S. higher education market. However, few ex post studies of their local economic development impacts exist. This paper presents a quasi-experimental control group analysis of a group of twenty-one counties where community colleges were established during the 1970s and 1980s. It shows that community college counties have a stimulating effect on state and local government employment and that counties with community colleges grew faster than counties without them. However, it does not confirm the existence of more widespread industrial impacts