Academic Performance in Community Colleges: The Influences of Part-Time and Full-Time Instructors

Understanding the relative impacts of part-time adjuncts in community colleges is highly policy-relevant, partly because community colleges rely on part-time faculty heavily and partly because community colleges assume a critical role in addressing the national equity agenda by disproportionately serving underrepresented groups. This study uses individual transcript data to explore how initial exposure to a particular field of study with part-time adjuncts influences student performance in current and subsequent course performance in community colleges. To address selection bias, I use two empirical strategies, a two-way fixed effects model and an instrumental variable approach. The results consistently suggest that part-time adjuncts are associated with higher grades in contemporaneous courses but have negative impacts on subsequent course performance.