Supporting students returning to school after a mental health crisis often involves more training than many school staff members receive. With the increase in youth mental health diagnoses, there has also been an increase in the number of youth requiring psychiatric emergency department visits and hospitalizations. As such, this study employed a…

This phenomenological qualitative study sought to understand reasons contributing to Black or African American students' initial stop out, the decisions that led them to return to college, and the processes used to facilitate their return to college after being away from college for one year or more. This research was guided by the following…

The Kalamazoo Promise (KPromise) is amongst the most well-known and generous tuition-free policies. This study advances the understanding of Promise student performance and persistence. We used a weighted-least square means and variance adjusted (WLSMV) SEM approach and k-nearest neighbors (k-NN) to deal with missing data. The main model suggested…

The traditional college-age population is shrinking: fewer high school graduates pursue higher education each year, resulting in declining student enrollment at colleges across the country. At the same time, there are now more than 40 million Americans who have stopped out of college with some credit and no credential or degree. By opting out or…

Students entering into US-based higher educational institutions are electing more to take a gap year, loosely defined as a 6-12-month student-directed experience to pursue personally relevant interests, rather than traditionally matriculate into their institution after high school (Simpson, 2004; White, 2009; O'Shea, 2014; GYA, 2023a). However,…

Summer melt is a national phenomenon that occurs when high school graduates who intend to matriculate into higher education following graduation end up not doing so. This phenomenon is widespread across the country and enables the poverty cycle to continue. Over the last decade, national studies conducted to understand the summer melt phenomenon…

This qualitative study aims to provide insight into why teacher candidates, interested in pursuing K-12 teaching, made the decision to leave their traditional teacher preparation programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers utilized sociocultural theory as the framework to ground the research. The study finds the educational disruption…