During the past several years, the federal and state governments have adopted a college completion agenda using graduation rates as evidence of student success. With the demand for increased accountability on colleges and universities to ensure student success, institutions of higher education are searching for more effective ways to help students…

Adult learners seeking to earn a high school equivalency (HSE), like the general education development (GED), must often overcome major difficulties to persist (Comings, 2007) and succeed academically (Hansman & Mott, 2010). Adult learners might require hundreds of hours of training in GED programs to make up for early departure in high school…

The recent complexity of the university system, with diverse academic trajectories and varying socio-demographic characteristics of students, has led to increased access for historically underrepresented students. This has resulted in a rising number of adult learners, students with external responsibilities and individuals returning to education.…

Mentoring is widely recognized as an effective approach to addressing educational needs in U.S. schools, emphasizing the importance of strong, long-term mentor-mentee relationships (Karaferye, 2018; Wood & Mayo-Wilson, 2012). These relationships can provide crucial support for youth facing social, emotional, and financial challenges (Kuperminc…

Purpose and Method of Study: This study focused on the relationship between the cost of undergraduate education (COUE) and graduation rates in four-year institutions in Oklahoma. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the cost of undergraduate education (COUE) and graduation rates at four-year higher education…

I conducted a narrative literature review on first-year seminars to provide practitioners and researchers with a current, comprehensive review of the research investigating the effectiveness of this widely used, high-impact practice so that they could use this information to improve the course at their institution. I searched for peer-reviewed…

Poverty levels, socioeconomic status, and financial aid are key factors influencing college graduation rates. This study examined enrollment and graduation data in the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, North Carolina State University. The study revealed scholarships and work-study recipients graduated above the average graduation rate.…

This dissertation measures and describes the factors that impact doctoral student persistence. Using a mixed methods cases study design, I analyzed institutional student record data, survey data on caregiving responsibilities, and data from semi-structured interviews with PhD students at a STEM-focused, public research university in the American…

Like most other states, Missouri uses assessments intended to measure whether students are on a pathway to "college and career readiness." The state longitudinal data system now has the capacity to directly test that claim. We make use of 8th-grade assessment (MAP) scores in Math, Science, and Communication Arts for roughly 260,000…

This study uses secondary data to explore the relationship between the percentage of Latinos enrolled in a postsecondary institution and two educational outcomes: graduating within six years and total amount in student loan debt. Research on the concentration of Latino students in higher education have mostly focused on Hispanic Serving…

Community college students graduate at low rates nationwide which prevents many noncompleters from benefiting from the economic and employment advantages of a degree or certificate. Despite myriad strategies to address this problem, little is known about the impact of faculty job satisfaction on student completion. The purpose of this study was to…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between race, high school graduation, Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, and four-year college-going rates. The setting included 89 school districts that were located in two adjacent suburban counties in New York State: Nassau and Suffolk. A Pearson Product-Moment correlation analysis,…

Purpose: Prospective students and other stakeholders in the education system use global and national rankings as a measure of the quality of education offered by different higher educational institutions. The ranking of an Institution is seen as a measure of reputation and has a significant role in attracting students. But are students happy in…

This study was to create an understanding of students that were placed on academic probation to assess their shared characteristics in relation to their rate of graduation. To do this, the study group selected was a cohort of students from a ten-year time span who were placed on academic probation at a small university in northwest New Jersey.…

As demand for college graduates grows (Times Higher Education, 2023) persistence rates for first-generation students continue to lag (Toutkoushain et al., 2018, 2021). Complicating our understanding of this opportunity gap is the diversity of how first-generation student status is defined (Jo Peralta & Klonowski, 2017). We argue that while…