Revising Roles, Transforming Trajectories: Evaluating Community College Baccalaureate Programs' Implications on Educational Access and Equity

Davis Vo

In the past two decades, there has been a rise in community colleges that are authorized to offer bachelor's degree programs. Community college bachelor's or baccalaureate (CCB) programs fundamentally shift the role and function of community colleges. My dissertation is a multi-method research project that will utilize qualitative and quantitative approaches to explore the implications of CCB adoption on educational access, success, and equity. Using institutional and/or state datasets, I will conduct descriptive and inferential analysis to explore CCB-related trajectories, with considerations to students' varied social backgrounds and contexts. Additionally, using causal inference methods, I will examine whether CCB graduates earn significantly higher (or different) wages compared to their academically and demographically similar counterparts (e.g., students who matriculated into CCB programs but have not graduated). As part of a separate analysis, I will explore meaningful educational access through various dimensions that are relevant to community colleges generally and CCB programs specifically, such as administrative burdens, economic factors, fields of study, geographic influences, social forces, and time-related considerations. To explore meaningful educational access, I will conduct semi-structured 1-on-1 interviews with prospective, current, and exited (e.g., students who have completed or paused enrollment) students from at least four community colleges in California, home of the largest community college system in the United States. Through this analysis, my dissertation aims to generate rich insights in the ways that CCB programs contribute to the alleviation or reproduction of economic/social stratification, (im)mobility, and (in)equality/(in)equity.

About Davis Vo

Davis (he/him/his) is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), School of Education & Information Studies (Ed&IS) and M.S. candidate in the Department of Statistics & Data Science. Through his research, he examines the conditions that foster improved higher education access, success, and equity, particularly for historically minoritized communities. Broadly, he is interested in three interconnected lines of research: (1) the academic and labor market experiences and outcomes relating to community college students that have historically been and/or racially minoritized, (2) the impact of educational practices and policies in addressing social stratification and (in)equity, and (3) the economic, social, and spatial contexts that shape how community college students and practitioners operate and that inform students' college and career decision-making. His dissertation explores the implications of community colleges' adoption of bachelor's degree programs on educational access, success, and equity. Prior to his doctoral studies, Davis spent over 10 years in advising, teaching, and research roles across California's education system: in the non-profit sector, as well as the K-12, community college, and public/private university systems. He holds a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and a M.Ed. from the University of Southern California (USC) Rossier School of Education.