Both society- and individual-level factors serve to make persistence through one's university career more difficult, especially for students with disadvantaged financial and academic backgrounds. Using a rich dataset of students at a rural, 4-year university in Pennsylvania, we compare GPA and persistence outcomes of two groups of students in…

Undergraduate research experiences offer a range of positive academic and affective student outcomes. However, these benefits often do not reach all students, as research experiences are often selective, favor high-achieving students, focus on STEM fields, and typically target students in their third or fourth year of undergraduate studies. To…

Purpose: An increasing number of autistic students are pursuing higher education to enhance career opportunities, achieve personal growth, and increase independence. Nonetheless, many encounter difficulties in transitioning to and thriving in this environment, despite the support offered by universities. Here, we review the preliminary data from a…

Summer bridge programs (SBPs) are intended to promote student learning, academic achievement, and persistence to graduation. They are also a viable vehicle for supporting diverse minoritized student constituencies. Our study, guided by a student-centered assessment approach, examined the experiences of incoming first-year students. Findings…

Pre-tertiary enabling programs have become an increasingly popular pathway to university in Australia in recent years, however little is published about how well enabling students fare once they start university. This paper examines and compares first-year retention and academic outcomes of students that entered Murdoch University between 2014 and…

A small public historically Black college and university (HBCU) is offering the Providing Opportunities with Education and Readiness (POWER), a summer program to improve precollege high school students' academic performance and subsequent retention once in college. The problem investigated by this study was the low retention rates and grade point…

This applied dissertation is a mixed-methods study designed to collect student perspectives of an online First-Year Experience (FE) course and to determine the overall value of the FE course. The researcher sought to identify what is the value of the FE course to the students enrolled in this online course. In the study's survey, students will be…

Ithaca College S-STEM is a Track 1 National Science Foundation (NSF) Scholarships in STEM (S-STEM) initiative designed to address the challenges of recruiting and retaining high-achieving, low-income students majoring in physics, mathematics, and computer science. The program focuses on improving retention by fostering a sense of belonging among…

A 'quantum leap' (Kift, 2015) in our understanding of the transition to university studies has brought about a reimagining of the role of transition programs from attempting to remediate deficiencies in 'underprepared' students, to instead using engagement with the curriculum to instil success-oriented behaviours and attitudes in them. In…

This study examines the impact of an open-admissions summer bridge program geared toward first-year students at a large, public, land-grant university. The purpose of the study was to determine the impact of the program on first-year student success as defined by (a) first-year fall semester GPA, (b) end-of-first-year GPA, (c) first-year fall…

The American Talent Initiative's Student Success Research Grant Program supported research studies aimed at deepening our understanding of the institutional practices and strategies that can improve student success at high-graduation-rate institutions. The findings will offer actionable recommendations for supporting lower-income students, while…

Many colleges are pursuing innovative alternative approaches for the development of education that aims to accelerate students' progress in gaining important academic competencies. Summer bridge programs are one such approach. These bridge programs offer underprepared and at-risk students the opportunity to advance toward college-level coursework…

All incoming students have a first experience with their institution. This article reviews literature on adult education, online learning, and first-year student success to articulate the scope of experiences and programs that ought to be included in institutional efforts aimed at helping adult students be successful in their first year of online…

The purpose of freshmen orientation is "bridging the gap to college" (Tinto, 1993, p. 159). All college orientation programs have three objectives: provide information, set expectations, and provide social integration (Greenfield, Keup, & Gardner, 2013; Schofield & Sackville, 2010). Research supports a positive relationship…

A summer bridge program was developed in an engineering program to advance the preparation of incoming freshmen students, particularly with respect to their math course placement. The program was intended to raise the initial math course placement of students who otherwise would begin their engineering studies in courses below Calculus I. One…