The College Board sought to reduce barriers in the college application process by minimizing information aggregation costs, encouraging a broad application portfolio, and providing an impetus to start the search process. Some students were offered additional encouragements, such as text message reminders or college application fee waivers. In a…

Colleges throughout the United States are evaluating the effectiveness of the strategies used to decide whether to place students into college-level or developmental education courses. Developmental, or remedial, courses are designed to develop the reading, writing, or math skills of students deemed underprepared for college-level courses, a…

Senior year of high school can be a pivotal time in a young person's life. For some, it is the last step on the path to college and work. For others, finding stable employment or attending university after high school is far from guaranteed. Urban Alliance, headquartered in Washington, DC, helps students at risk of becoming disconnected from work…

The U.S. Department of Education tested a set of promising, low-cost advising strategies, called "Find the Fit," designed to help low-income and "first generation" students enrolled in the Department's Upward Bound program choose more selective colleges and stay in until they complete a degree. About 200 Upward Bound projects…

One of the most important questions in education research is whether the gains from interventions for which perceived short-term success can be sustained. The possibility of short-lived impacts is especially relevant for research on charter schools, where charter operators who face high-stakes assessments have an incentive to "teach to the…

College graduation rates often lag behind college attendance rates. One theory as to why students do not complete college is that they lack key information about how to be successful or fail to act on the information that they have. We present evidence from a randomized experiment which tests the effectiveness of individualized student coaching.…

College student degree attainment has been identified as a national issue, and recently has become a topic of emphasis for institutions of higher education. In the past, research has focused on retaining students from year one in college to year two. With the demand for baccalaureate-prepared graduates increasing and the charge to compete in a…

This study investigated the effectiveness of using a computer program over six weeks to teach high school students to use Latin and Greek root words for deciphering English terms in order to increase their scores on the verbal portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Results indicated that knowledge of Latin and Greek root words improved students'…

Analysis of data from 5 years shows that students enrolled in the Dalton Junior College (Georgia) first-year seminar, although similar to a comparison group in age, sex, standardized entrance test scores, degree objectives, and group grade point average, attempted more course hours, showed a higher retention rate, completed more hours, and had a…