Enrollment in two-year colleges varies widely from state to state, according to a report being released today.
In some states, a higher share of the population is enrolling in community colleges than in other states, by as much as five to one, the report says.
The report, based on a study conducted by David F. Shaffer, a senior fellow at the State University of New York’s Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, urges researchers and policy makers to study the differences.
“The data indicate that the differences are real, and important,” wrote Mr. Shaffer, the report’s author. “What remains to be learned is what explains them.”
The report describes a link between lower tuition and higher percentages of students enrolled in two-year colleges. But tuition doesn’t tell the entire story, the report says, because some states offering low tuition at two-year colleges don’t have especially high rates of enrollment.
On average in the United States, tuition at a two-year college takes 3.6 percent of median family income, the report says. It points out that while states with the highest rates of adults enrolled in two-year colleges have the cheapest tuition, many states that have low two-year enrollments also offer low tuition.
Nationally, enrollment in community colleges in the United States grew more slowly than enrollment in public four-year colleges from 2000 to 2005, the study found. But in several states, including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Georgia, New York, and West Virginia, community colleges are outstripping public four-year colleges’ enrollment rates. —Kate Moser