From Brookings:
The impact of two-year colleges on upward mobility has sparked debate, especially given President Biden’s hopes to make community college free. Jack Mountjoy uses an instrumental variables approach and longitudinal administrative data spanning the state of Texas to estimate the causal impact of attending two-year college. Overall, he finds a net positive impact on years of schooling (by an additional year), a bump of 10 percentage points in bachelor’s degree attainment, and a similar rise in later earnings. The positive results are driven by the two thirds of students who would not otherwise have gone to college, who are largely from low-income families. But those who were diverted from four-year entry into a two-year institution ultimately do worse overall. Notably, women primarily drive the results.