Obtaining a postsecondary education is an important factor in long-term labour market success (Frenette 2019) and a key mechanism for achieving intergenerational income mobility (Simard-Duplain and St-Denis 2020). Previous research ending in 2014 documented substantial gaps in postsecondary enrolment rates between higher- and lower-income youth…

This study analyzed data from 674 institutions collected through an AACRAO 60 Second Survey to investigate the levels of institutionalization of SEM in U.S. postsecondary institutions. Both Resource Dependency Theory (Pfeffer and Salancik 2003) and Institutional Isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell 1983) were used to frame the study. The researchers…

This paper estimates the effects of earning industry-recognized certifications (IRCs) in high school on downstream outcomes. IRCs are a form of alternative education credential issued by industry groups or corporations to individuals seeking to acquire knowledge or skills in a particular sector. This credential type has grown rapidly among high…

This study examines the extent to which parental involvement factors predict the likelihood of Hispanic non-native English speakers' (NNESs) postsecondary education (PES) enrollment after controlling for socioeconomic status and linguistic factors. A nationally representative Education Longitudinal Study dataset and a binary multilevel logistic…

The term "summer melt" denotes a phenomenon when post-secondary students who received an offer of admission and may have paid a deposit when accepting the offer, "fail to enroll at all in the fall after high school graduation". Assessing the extent of summer melt and the success of measures to reduce it has become more relevant…

Washington's high school graduation rate has increased over the past decade. In 2022, 82 percent of high school students in the state graduated in four years, a six-percentage point increase over the 2013 graduation rate. This report looks at postsecondary enrollment trends for Washington high school graduates in the classes of 2020 and 2021…

Rural students graduate high school at a rate comparable to their urban and suburban peers; however, people from rural areas attend college at the lowest rate. Due to this discrepancy and the ever-growing importance of postsecondary education, this article summarizes and synthesizes works on the college enrollment of students from rural areas. The…

This dissertation consists of three papers. In each paper, I use applied econometric methods to study the interaction between immigration policy and the postsecondary policy. The findings offer insights about how immigration policy can influence the education outcomes of undocumented individuals. In my first paper, I explore the effect on…

Evaluations of Early College, a type of intervention that enables simultaneous enrollment in secondary and post-secondary courses in the United States, consistently find positive effects on educational attainment across racial and socioeconomic groups. Unlike Early College initiatives in other states, Massachusetts launched Early College in Fall…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted nearly every aspect of the social and economic lives of individuals, families, and communities. It also highlighted and deepened existing racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities. Education, too, was negatively impacted by the pandemic. Research has provided ample evidence about the challenges related to learning…

There are numerous widely recognized advantages to pursuing post-secondary education. Yet colleges offer students different resources and educational experiences, which may introduce inequality in the returns to college enrollment. This dissertation uses nationally representative data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS:2002) and the 1997…

This Information Capsule utilized data from the Scoir platform to report on post-secondary plans and enrollment for the M-DCPS class of 2022. Approximately 95% of the high school seniors enrolled in traditional high schools had available data on the platform and of those, 90% indicated they had plans to attend college after graduating from high…

Leveraging rich data on the universe of Texas high school graduates, we estimate how the relationship between geographic access to public two- and four-year postsecondary institutions and postsecondary outcomes varies across race-ethnicity and socioeconomic status. We find that students are sensitive to the distance they must travel to access…

This paper investigates patterns of racial/ethnic and gender gaps in post-secondary degree attainment trajectories by the levels of students' pre-college academic preparation. We follow four cohorts of Missouri public high school freshmen for five years beyond on-time graduation among White, Black, and Hispanic male and female students. A…

Social and emotional (SE) skills are known to be linked with many important life outcomes, including academic performance, performance on standardized college entrance exams, and college enrollment. In this technical brief, the authors evaluated whether the five SE skills measured with the Mosaic™ by ACT® predict postsecondary enrollment and…