Grade retention and inequalities that derive from grade retention can influence student school trajectories and careers. Grade retention can discourage students from education, and increase school failure and dropout. This study explored the relationship between grade retention and student intentions to enrol in higher education. We also studied…

College retention, persistence, and completion are key indicators of a successful institution, but six-year degree completion has remained stagnant in recent years (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2022). Despite institutional efforts through success initiatives to keep students retained, one set of barriers to degree completion may…

It is well established that participation in formal adult education varies by individual background characteristics. However, less attention has been paid to examining inequality in participation as a consequence of policy changes, such as educational expansion. This paper examines the process of tremendous expansion in Swedish Higher Vocational…

The relationship between geography and the selection of university is well documented and suggests that a student's location substantially limits their choice of institution. However, there are few studies investigating the interplay between geography and the decision to attend university, particularly in the UK. This study aims to establish if…

What happens when college students are not able to enroll in the courses they want? We use a natural experiment at Purdue University in which first-year students are conditionally randomly assigned to oversubscribed courses. Compared to students who are assigned a requested course, those who are shut out are 40% less likely to ever take the…

We examined the effect of three components of self-determination--autonomy, empowerment, and self-realization--on the postsecondary enrollment of English learners with disabilities, using quasi-experimental propensity score modeling and data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Transition Study-2. Results support the hypothesis that…

Purpose: The paper innovates on the existing literature by assessing the gender gap in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) tertiary education enrolment and career choice in a small country setting and by extending on Master and Meltzoff (2016) theoretical framework to provide a holistic explanation of the gender disparity through a…

Merit aid is an increasingly important component of college scholarships, but policymakers are concerned that merit aid is often given to students who would enroll anyway. As a baseline we use a regression discontinuity (RD) framework to test an institution-level merit aid program at a public research university and find that the merit aid program…

We examined the effect of three components of self-determination--autonomy, empowerment, and self-realization--on the postsecondary enrollment of English learners with disabilities, using quasi-experimental propensity score modeling and data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2. Results support the hypothesis that self-determination…

We estimate the impact of one of the largest college-to-student outreach efforts in the nation, the College Board's Student Search Service. In an oversubscribed "order," colleges receive contact information of a randomly chosen subset of PSAT and SAT exam takers who opt into the service and meet colleges' search criteria from a larger…

The college experience involves much more than credit hours and degrees. Students likely derive utility from in-person instruction and on-campus social activities. Quantitative measures of the value of these individual components have been hard to come by. Leveraging the COVID-19 shock, we elicit students' intended likelihood of enrolling in…

This study examines the long-term relation between an Integrated Student Support (ISS) intervention and postsecondary enrollment and completion for predominantly low-income students of color. We use propensity score weighting to estimate the relation between receiving ISS during elementary school and postsecondary outcomes for 2009-2017 high…

Course selection is a crucial and challenging problem that students have to face while navigating through an undergraduate degree program. The decisions they make shape their future in ways that they cannot conceive in advance. Available departmental sample degree plans are not personalized for each student, and personal discussion time with an…

Social and emotional (SE) skills are known to be linked with many important life outcomes, including academic performance, performance on standardized college entrance exams, and college enrollment, although research on enrollment is limited. In this report, the authors present data points from a study that evaluated test-criterion validity…

Recent national research on the validity of the SAT shows that students with higher SAT scores are more likely to earn higher grades in college, and that SAT scores add about 15% more predictive power above high school grade point average (HSGPA) to estimate students' college performance (Westrick, Marini, Young, Ng, Shmueli, & Shaw, 2019).…