Two-year institutions of higher education are critical to state educational attainment (Auguste, Cota, Kartik, & Laboissiere, 2010; Wildavsky, Kelly, & Carey, 2011c), but the institutions may be hindered in contributing to attainment increases by the arrangement of governance (McLendon & Ness, 2003). The purpose of the study was to explore how the arrangement of higher education governance shapes the contribution of two-year institutions to state educational attainment (McLendon & Ness, 2003; Richardson Jr., Bracco, Callan, & Finney, 1999). The study utilized descriptive statistics and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) methodology (Ragin, 1987) to analyze 816 state policies (accountability, affordability, college completion, finance, postsecondary remediation, postsecondary transitions, transfer and articulation, and workforce and economic development) in the 2005-2012 Boosting College Completion dataset (National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, 2012). The study explored how attainment policy varied across state two-year Coordinating, Governing, and Mixed governance arrangements (McGuinness Jr., 2014b), how region, population, socio-economic development, and state educational development combined with governance arrangement, and how the arrangement of higher education governance shapes the contribution of two-year institutions to foster improved state educational attainment. The number of policies served as a surrogate for policy innovation and a state's focus on two-year institutions. Descriptive statistics revealed a clear pattern with the 25 Coordinating and Mixed arrangement states enacting higher mean numbers of policies in all types, while the 25 Governing arrangement states enacted lower mean numbers of policies. Demographic contexts were not found to be crucial. Rather, QCA revealed the arrangement and structure of governance was crucial empirically in shaping the role of two-year institutions for increased state educational attainment. Findings suggest two-year institutions in Coordinating and Mixed states play a larger role for increasing educational attainment through the governance arrangement's broad policy focus, and Governing states may constrain the contribution of two-year institutions to increased attainment through a mismatched policy environment and narrow governance policy focus. Future research should expand the study of governance of two-year institutions and examine the outcomes of the enacted policies. These findings have implications for governors, system leaders, and legislators considering governance changes to meet state educational attainment goals. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]