Tracking and using data to inform decisions pays off for college success programs on multiple levels. Having data allows program staff to monitor the progress of individual students and tailor support to their particular needs. It enables staff to understand the effectiveness of program activities and make improvements as necessary. Most…

Higher education leaders have repeatedly called for improved diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, but many institutions continue to fall short. Data can play an integral role in this work; key among them are data on student demographics, including race/ethnicity. Meeting diversity, equity, and inclusion goals requires a thorough and nuanced…

This quantitative study investigates the predictive power of machine learning (ML) models on degree completion among adult learners in higher education, emphasizing the enhancement of data-driven decision-making (DDDM). By analyzing three ML models - Random Forest, Gradient-Boosting machine (GBM), and CART Decision Tree - within a not-for-profit,…

COVID-19 has exacerbated existing equity gaps and made college persistence even more difficult for students with less access to resources and opportunities than their White or wealthier peers. Altogether, these challenges require organizations to establish new approaches to engaging college students and monitoring their academic progress and…

State education data systems help policymakers use data to evaluate the impact of their efforts to improve education. By disaggregating the data -- that is, breaking it out by different student subgroups -- policymakers can ensure that their efforts address the needs of students who have been traditionally underserved in educational settings. Yet…

This study investigated the likelihood of bachelor's degree completion among nontraditional-aged transfer students. Using national data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study, this study provided insight into the success of first-time nontraditional-aged students who initially enrolled at a community college and transferred…

We contribute to research on social inequalities in educational attainment by examining the role of institutional contexts for students' study abroad (SA) intent and participation. To do so, we extend the individual-level rational choice model predicting SA intent and participation depending on students' socioeconomic status (SES) into a…

Objective/Research Question: Community college graduation rates are typically quite low, and developmental mathematics enrollment and coursetaking patterns may constrain academic outcomes. To identify ways in which community college graduation rates may be improved, decision trees were utilized to examine the STEM coursetaking patterns of N =…

We study the 1992 higher education expansion reform in Turkey and examine how the expansion program changed higher education attainment and labor market access, particularly for women, who are disadvantaged on both accounts. We use the 2011 Population and Housing Census and employ a difference-in-differences estimation strategy. We find that the…

Data-informed decision-making has always been -- and always will be -- a smart approach to policy, including at institutions of higher education. Just over one year since the COVID-19 pandemic radically and abruptly shifted every aspect of higher education, states and institutions are tackling the same student success goals as before, but with…

The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) has available for research a large data warehouse of enrollment and graduation information from 1993 to the present for nearly all postsecondary students in the United States. In this most recent academic year, 18 million currently enrolled students alone were added to the database. Some of the following…

This study introduces data mining methods to accounting education scholarship to explore the relationship between accounting students' current academic performance (grades), demographic information, pre-university entrance scores and predicted academic performance. It adopts a C4.5 classification algorithm based on decision-tree analysis to…

"The Virginia Plan for Higher Education" articulates the objective that the Commonwealth will be the best-educated state by 2030. To achieve this objective, Virginia not only must increase educational-attainment rates, but also close the gaps in the differing rates of attainment that exist across its population and its regions. The…

Most public colleges and universities rely heavily on state financial support. As state budgets have tightened in recent decades, appropriations for higher education have declined substantially. Despite concerns expressed by policymakers and scholars that the declines in state support have reduced the return to education investment for public…

With the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework a lot of attention is focussed on measuring learning gains. A vast body of research has found that individual student characteristics influence academic progression over time. This case-study aims to explore how advanced statistical techniques in combination with Big Data can be used to…