For the past decade and a half, many institutions of higher education have asked about high school disciplinary experiences, including suspensions, on their applications. Advocates have argued that this "discipline box" has a negative effect on suspended students' likelihood to apply and be accepted to institutions of higher education…

Legal education scholars have argued that law schools strategically use Students of Color for enrollment management purposes; they can admit more to meet admission targets, but they should not enroll so many that they need to open new course sections. As law school applications decline, we analyze enrollment panel data reported to the American Bar…

While a substantial body of work has shown that higher-SES students tend to apply to more selective colleges than their lower-SES counterparts, we know relatively less about "why" students differ in their application behavior. In this study, we draw upon a sociological approach to educational stratification to unpack the SES-based gap in…

This study estimates the short- and long-term effects of undergraduate educational debt on students' decisions to apply and to enroll in graduate school after completing requirements for a baccalaureate degree, using marginal mean weighting through stratification method (MMW-S) to analyze data from the National Center for Education Statistics…

In the United States, some states allow undocumented immigrants to benefit from in-state resident tuition policy at public colleges and universities, a benefit aimed at improving accessibility to higher education. Yet, undocumented immigrants face bureaucratic procedures and requirements that may discourage them from applying and delay or hamper…

In the United States, college students must complete the Free Application for Student Federal Aid (FAFSA) to access federal aid. However, many eligible students do not apply and consequently forgo significant amounts of financial aid. If students have perfect information about aid eligibility, we would expect that all eligible students complete…

Research has shown that family structure changes negatively influence educational attainment, but they overlook qualitative distinctions in college choice, such as college selectivity. Yet, college choice research has largely focused on static measures of family structure, failing to account for year-to-year family structure changes that occur…

University administrators often strive for racial, socioeconomic, and geographic diversity in their student populations. Today, administrators face a new demographic challenge as women increasingly outnumber men in applications, enrollments, and graduation rates. This article discusses the causes and potential consequences of the growing gender…

The study provides new information on the relationships between students' socioeconomic backgrounds, utilization of college enhancement strategies, and subsequent 4-year college enrollment. Enhancement strategies represent student behaviors used to bolster the competitiveness of a college application, such as Advanced Placement exams and a variety…

While socioeconomic inequality in postsecondary outcomes is well documented, limited research explores the extent to which seeing a high school counselor can help to reduce inequality in college destinations. In particular, previous research rarely considers the high school context in which counselors and students interact as well as the other…

College is increasingly essential for economic and social mobility. Current research and public policy devotes significant attention to race, income, and socioeconomic factors in college access. Yet, wealth's role, as differentiated from income, is largely unexplored. This paper examines the differences between wealth and income in the…

Honors colleges housed in public universities began only in the last half century, but have become nearly ubiquitous over the last 20 years. This paper, using recent data from the oldest stand-alone honors college in the country, is the first to study how the application and enrollment decisions of honors college students differ from the general…

Few studies have examined the steps to college enrollment between college aspiration and college enrollment and how these steps might present a barrier to four-year college enrollment. This study used data from the Education Longitudinal Study: 2002 and employed a multivariate random effects logistic framework to examine the completion of nine…

Using the College Board SAT registration and questionnaire data of 2010 high school graduating seniors, we found clear patterns by race/ethnicity and parental education on two outcomes: out-of-state score-sending and out-of-state college attendance. White students had the highest rates and Hispanic students had the lowest rates, and there was a…

Active involvement in college activities is linked to a host of student development outcomes, including personal growth, achievement and satisfaction. Yet, to date there has been too little attention to how social class shapes campus involvement. Through an analysis of survey data of students attending a single elite university and a national…