A majority of high school graduates aspire to earn a college degree (ACT, 2016), yet many students are graduating from high school unprepared to do college-level work. As a result, about one-third of college freshmen enroll in at least one developmental course upon entry to college (Skomsvold, 2014). Because developmental courses are often not…

As the United States struggles to be globally competitive with the number of students completing a college degree higher education leaders continue seeking answers to improving student retention and graduation rates. Decades of research has been conducted on investigating factors that impact student retention and graduation with the majority of…

Many academically-advanced youth take the ACT® test in 7th grade for academic talent searches and again in 11th or 12th grade for college admissions. We leveraged this sample of 460,033 students, taking an exploratory analytic approach to examine trends in academic growth from 1996 to 2016. We examined potential predictors of academic growth,…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the ability of standardized test scores to predict the performance of students in first-year mathematics courses, and the extent to which these tests displayed differential validity among various subgroups. Using discriminant analysis, it was established that the following percentages of…

Colleges are increasingly interested in identifying the factors that maximize their enrollment. These factors allow enrollment management administrators to identify the applicants who have higher tendency to enroll at their institutions and accordingly to better allocate their money rewards (i.e., scholarship and financial aid). In this paper we…

We use statewide administrative data from Missouri to examine the role of high schools in explaining students' initial college and major placements at 4-year public universities. To facilitate our investigation of postsecondary sorting, we develop a "preparation and persistence index" (PPI) for each university-by-major cell in the…

College readiness is increasingly prioritized in federal and state policy initiatives. This study sought to examine the relationship between college readiness and several school-level factors. Specifically, quantitative data from 328 high schools were utilized to investigate the relationships among school-wide academic performance, school size,…

A plethora of research spanning several decades has attempted to understand predictors of retention and graduation in undergraduate bachelor's degree programs. The topic is no less important today, as larger and larger swaths of the American population attend college each year. Studies have demonstrated that key demographic variables, indicators…

We examined 482,418 students who took the ACT in the seventh grade and again in high school, taking an exploratory analytic approach to examine academic growth trends from 1996 to 2017. Predictors included sociodemographics, interests, high school (HS) characteristics, HS coursework and GPA, and extracurriculars, which explained 25% of the…

Many students who earn a bachelor's degree also aspire to earn a graduate degree. In this study, we examined student and institutional characteristics that are related to graduate school enrollment. Student characteristics included demographic characteristics; high school performance measures, coursework taken, and extracurricular activities;…

We derived an index of high school academic rigor by optimizing the prediction of first-year college GPA based on high school courses taken, grades, and indicators of advanced coursework. Using a large data set (n~108,000) and nominal parameterization of high school course outcomes, the high school academic rigor (HSAR) index capitalizes on…

This correlational study examined the relationship between type of high school a senior attends (University-Model SchoolRTM (UMS RTM) or traditional, comprehensive Christian) and academic college readiness, when controlling for prior academic achievement and gender. The study compared archival data from Christian school graduates from six schools…

School communities across the country are working hard to comply with state and federal policies requiring that all students be prepared for success in college. Technological advances and new reporting requirements make data on students and schools more accessible than ever--but more and better data alone are not enough to meet the challenges…

Educators nationwide confront a troubling phenomenon: Increasingly, students leave high school unready for college, as evidenced by high rates of placement into remedial courses and low rates of college completion. Many students also lack either the attitudes or skills essential to succeed in a postsecondary setting, or knowledge of how to apply…

The purpose of this study was to analyze school and district characteristics for 2005-2006 through 2007-2008 to determine which factors impacted science achievement for the graduating class of 2008-2009 in Tennessee. School size, socioeconomic status, per pupil instructional expenditures and rurality/urbanicity were predictor variables.…