Do Community College Students Benefit from Federal Work-Study Participation?

Background Prior studies suggest that Federal Work-Study (FWS) participation is positively associated with student learning, persistence, and academic achievement at four-year institutions. Limited research, however, has evaluated whether FWS participation improves academic success among students attending community colleges. Purpose and Research Questions The purpose of this study was to determine whether and how FWS participation impacted academic performance and enrollment outcomes among a racially/ethnically diverse sample of students attending a large, urban community college (UCC) system in Texas. There were two research questions: (1) What are the characteristics of students at UCC who participated in FWS, compared with their peers who did not participate? (2) After controlling for self-selection bias, are there significant differences in academic success (i.e., cumulative GPA; credential attainment and/or four-year transfer) among UCC students who did and did not participate in the FWS program? Research Design The longitudinal data set (fall 2010 through summer 2016) analyzed in this study was built using detailed student-level transcript data records. The full sample included 8,837 students who had filed a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (a necessary step to receive FWS funding), but the primary focus was on the subsample of FWS participants (n = 260). Descriptive analysis was performed to compare the demographic and academic characteristics of FWS participants with nonparticipants. To assuage self-selection bias, propensity score matching (nearest neighbor matching algorithm) was used to match similar students who did and did not participate in FWS. We employed multiple regression and logistic regression techniques on the matched data to investigate whether FWS participation was associated with students’ academic outcomes. Results Relative to their non-FWS peers, FWS participants at this community college were more likely to be female, African American, 24 years of age or older, very low income, and academically underprepared. After successfully matching FWS participants with similar non-FWS participants, results indicated that FWS participation was associated with a higher cumulative GPA and significantly higher odds of credential completion and/or vertical transfer. Conclusions There are important equity implications in our findings; the results suggest that the FWS program can improve educational outcomes for student populations that are often marginalized and underserved by the higher education system. We describe several ways that the FWS program could be redesigned and expanded to better meet the needs of community college students.