A new paper says community college enrollments fall in response to state-level minimum wage increases, but degree completion rates largely stay the same. A new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that community colleges lose students when a state’s minimum wage increases, but that degree attainment rates at these institutions remain mostly unchanged. The paper, released Monday, notes that there have been almost 400 state-level minimum wage changes between 1986 and 2019. Of those changes, 239 were minimum wage increases of at least 6 percent, and 96 were increases of at least 10 percent.