Background/Context: The transition from high school to college marks a critical juncture for students planning to pursue higher education, particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds. Unfortunately, many of these students are left to navigate complex financial aid requirements, registration processes, and academic placement with…

In this descriptive study, the academic success (graduation rate, graduating grade-point-average, semesters to graduation) and the patterns of academic engagement (time from first to last enrollment, characteristics of the "time-outs" taken, between-semester volatility in grade-point-average) for five groups of students with psychiatric…

The STRONG-CT alliance between four U.S. institutions, the University of Connecticut, Manchester Community College, Quinebaug Valley Community College, and Three Rivers Community College, seeks to help diversify and enlarge the STEM communities in Connecticut by increasing enrollment, retention, and graduation of racial/ethnic minority and first…

The open admissions policies of community colleges serve to remove barriers for students aspiring to a college education (Mosholder & Zirkle, 2007), provide an affordable opportunity to attend college (Mullin & Honeyman, 2008; Zinser & Hanssen, 2006), and increase underrepresented student population enrollments at four-year…

My dissertation utilizes an explanatory, sequential mixed-methods research design to assess factors influencing community college students' transfer probability to baccalaureate-granting institutions and to present promising practices in colleges and states directed at improving upward transfer, particularly for low-income and first-generation…

This sequential mixed method study (Creswell, 2003) compared the adjustment process of community college transfer students who began in the fall to those who began mid-year, beginning with a quantitative phase and extending to a qualitative phase of data collection in the fall semester and repeating this same sequence of data gathering with…

The end of high school marks the time when the most number of individuals will end their participation playing sports at a competitive level. For those pursuing higher education, it has been viewed as a stressful experience for many freshmen. Former high school athletes that enter college as "students" and not…