Full-Time Work and College Enrollment: The Roles of Scheduling Constraints and Online Education
Abstract
Enrollment in postsecondary education while employed full-time is a common path to human capital accumulation, but many full-time workers wanting to invest in higher education face time and scheduling constraints. In this paper, I examine the extent to which increasing access to online education relaxes some of these constraints and gives full-time workers more access to educational opportunities. The number of institutions offering a wide array of online learning opportunities has been increasing steadily over time; 11% of undergraduate students were taking exclusively online education courses in Fall 2012, which increased to 17.6% in Fall 2019 and 23.9% in Fall 2022. At the same time, over half of undergraduate students over the age of 25 work full-time and this share has also been increasing in recent years.Despite the proliferation of online education offerings, there is little empirical research on the impact of this increased supply of online education opportunities on the employment patterns of college students, especially those who are older. This paper examines the extent to which the expansion of online program offerings has lowered the opportunity cost of attending college while working full-time. Given women's generally higher demand for scheduling flexibility, I also document differences by gender.
Use state variations in online education penetration at public four-year institutions, I show that online program availability allows more people to pursue undergraduate degrees while working full-time and in higher-paying jobs. Female workers benefit more from online program availability. These findings underscore the importance for institutions of higher education of providing high-quality online program options.