Community college economics instruction: Results from a National Science Foundation Project

Abstract

The principal investigator of a National Science Foundation project, “Economics at Community Colleges,” surveyed community college economics faculty and organized workshops, webinars, and regional meetings to address community college faculty isolation from new ideas in economics and economics instruction. Survey results, combined with National Study of Postsecondary Faculty data, help fill a lacuna in information about community college faculty. A key finding is the reliance in community college economic instruction on part-time faculty, including many who do not hold a graduate degree in economics. The project's webinars reached the most community college faculty, while the workshops were most effective in improving economics instruction. Areas for future research are identified.

Keywords:

• Community college
• economics faculty
• principles of economics

JEL codes:

• A2
• I2

Funding

Support was received from National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education grant #1043245.

Notes

1. We use the terms “two-year college” and “community college” interchangeably. Community colleges are typically considered public and enroll the vast majority of students compared to private two-year colleges (Snyder and Dillow 2015, Table 303.70). A large number of postsecondary students take economics courses at community colleges, but how many is an open question. To the best of our knowledge, there are no formal estimates. The closest anyone has come was Siegfried (2000), who assumed that 39.5 percent of first-year students at two-year colleges enrolled in an introductory economics course in 2000. The percentage was used to approximate the number of students taking a college-level introductory economics course across U.S. postsecondary institutions in 2000: 641,000 at two-year colleges and 722,000 at four-year colleges. The percentage was derived from the American Economic Association's Fall 1998 Universal Academic Questionnaire (UAQ), which surveyed economics departments at four-year institutions, indicating that 39.5 percent of students at these institutions took at least one course in economics. Thus, as Siegfried noted, there was “no evidence to support” the same percentage applied to two-year colleges (203).

2. Response from the e-mailing list was 15 percent. Some sections of the country were underrepresented, notably New England, the Southeast, and parts of the Midwest.

3. Similar issues also may affect economics instruction at four-year institutions where part-time instructors, including graduate students, may teach a greater proportion of introductory economics courses (Bettinger and Long 2004).