A study reported the status of approximately 2,900 participants in the student-support-services program for disadvantaged college students, and of 2,900 comparable nonparticipating students three years after college entry, looking at grades received, number of credits accumulated, and retention rates. The study also collected information on how…

A study was conducted at Laramie County Community College to assess the performance of developmental students and evaluate the effectiveness of the college's testing and placement system. The study tracked students entering in fall 1993 whose placement scores identified them as developmental to determine actual enrollment and performance in…

The process of transitioning from secondary to postsecondary education can be very complex and challenging. Many freshmen students are coming to college underprepared and in need of developmental education. The role of student services is to assist these students and their families with this important transition to postsecondary education by…

Ferris State University's (FSU's) Collegiate Skills Program assists academically underprepared students in their transition to college. The program was initiatied in fall 1985 in response to increasing numbers of entering freshmen with inadequate reading and writing skills and subsequent high rates of attrition. Focusing initially on students with…

More than 90% of Bronx Community College (BCC) (New York) students require remedial coursework, and more than 90% also qualify for federal and state aid. Almost all of the freshmen at BCC are the first in their families to attend college. Most of the student body are women, many of whom have children, and there is a large population of…

To obtain a quantitative meta-analysis of studies addressing the effects of community college Developmental Studies Programs (DSPs) on students enrolled in higher education, an analysis was undertaken of a sample of studies culled from journal articles, dissertations, unpublished works found in ERIC, and published and unpublished proceedings of…

Issues pertaining to the retention of black students, particularly those attending predominantly white colleges and universities, are reviewed, based on a survey of the literature. Three categories of concerns were found in the literature: ways of conceiving black student retention; factors affecting retention; and strategies and remedies to…

In 1981, a study was conducted to investigate the academic performance and persistence patterns of developmental students who matriculated at Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC) between 1977 and 1979. Specifically, the study sought to determine the proportion of developmental students who successfully completed developmental and subsequent…

The Student Support Services Program, in the student affairs division, has been a counseling and tutorial program at Chicago State University since 1978. The program's goal is to increase the retention and graduation rates of the university's students. The program's focus is to monitor extensively each participant's first year at the university…

In response to statewide reductions in funding for remedial college programs, the English and speech faculty at Daley College (DC) developed and implemented a special block program in fall 1988 for remedial/developmental students. The goal of the program is to prepare remedial students for college-level work within the 30 hours of remediation…

Retention and attrition after the freshman year among disadvantaged students at a senior college of the City University of New York were studied. A conceptual model of Tinto (1975) was applied to a group of students participating in the Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) program, which provided remedial and/or developmental…

Techniques and procedures used to evaluate the outcomes of the student development program, and to use the evaluation results, are presented. Specific evaluation questions are posed that address overall outcomes, not individual student outcomes, and quantitative measures are suggested to accompany the questions. The measures include statistical…

In 1991, Bronx Community College, in New York, established the Freshman Year Initiative Program (FYIP), a comprehensive academic and counseling program designed to enhance academic achievement for a select group of first-semester students who require at least three remedial courses in English composition, reading, and/or mathematics. In order to…

This descriptive report focuses on Milwaukee Area Technical College's Crossover Program, which was designed to help students who have demonstrated a low level of academic preparedness on their admissions placement test to improve their basic academic skills and choose a realistic program of study. The first sections of the report describe the…

A project is described that was undertaken by the Developmental Studies Department at Wayne Community College (Michigan), an urban multi-campus institution of 25,000 students serving an entire county involving research in the psychology of the new adult learner. The approach used was to systematically build a classroom environment that responded…