One frequently cited yet understudied channel through which funding levels impact college students is course availability—colleges are often forced to respond to budgetary pressure by reducing course offerings. We provide the first causal evidence on this mechanism at a community college, using administrative course registration data and a novel research design that exploits discontinuities in course admissions created by waitlists. Community colleges enroll about half of U.S. undergraduates and over half of minority students in public colleges. The impacts of course availability in this setting may be especially salient relative to four-year colleges due to open admissions policies, binding class size constraints, and a heavy reliance on state funding. Across a range of bandwidths, we find that students stuck on a waitlist and shut out of a course section were 22–28 percent more likely to take zero courses that term relative to a baseline of about 10 percent. Shutouts also increased transfer rates to nearby, but potentially less-desirable two-year colleges. These results offer some evidence that course availability can disrupt community college students’ educational trajectories.

资金水平影响大学生的一个经常被引用但未被充分研究的渠道是课程的可用性—高校经常被迫通过减少课程设置来应对预算压力。我们使用行政课程注册数据和新颖的研究设计，利用社区等待者创建的课程录取的不连续性，为社区大学提供了有关此机制的第一个因果证据。社区学院招收了大约一半的美国本科生，一半以上的少数民族学生进入了公立学院。相对于四年制大学，由于开放招生政策，约束班级规模的限制以及严重依赖州政府的资助，在这种情况下课程可用性的影响相对于四年制大学尤为突出。在一定范围的带宽内，我们发现，被困在候补名单上并被拒之门外的学生，相对于约10％的基线，该学期选修零门课程的可能性要高22％至28％。停工也增加了向附近的，但可能不太理想的两年制大学的转学率。这些结果提供了一些证据，表明课程的提供会破坏社区大学生的教育轨迹。