Seventeen years ago, Florida officials green-lit a program allowing two-year colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees. The degrees, in areas like teaching and business, proved incredibly popular, drawing students who were looking for alternatives to pricier public and private colleges.

But there was a catch. Officials worried that the 28 community colleges might be taking revenue—and students—from Florida’s 12 four-year public universities.

Now, a recent review from University of Florida researchers concludes that four-year state schools actually saw an uptick in business, even while two-year schools offered a cheaper path to a bachelor’s degree. The real loser turned out to be private, for-profit universities. When a two-year community college offered a competing degree, private universities saw their degree output fall a whopping 45 percent.

“We did not expect to find that,” Dennis Kramer, an assistant professor and director of the Education Policy Research Center at the University of Florida, told the Hechinger Report. “Public four-year programs may actually benefit from the presence of a bachelor’s program at the local community college.”

But questions remain. Are states serving all students if they change the traditional structure of community colleges? And do the degrees students are receiving hold the same market value of those in state and private universities?

It remains to be seen, but knowing that experimentation hasn’t historically hurt the state’s public universities will likely open the door for more funding.