Many institutions of higher education are better known for their athletics programs than their academic offerings. Should a crisis arise, athletics scandal and notoriety can threaten the future trajectory and financial health of the campus. As such, lapses in intercollegiate athletics oversight can create fractures and tensions within institutions…

Despite college rankings' popular yet controversial nature, there is little known about the relationship between college rankings and students. Prior literature suggests that students who make use of rankings are more privileged, yet there lacks a comprehensive analysis surrounding the types of students who place importance on rankings in more…

As it becomes more difficult to predict enrollment outcomes and the decline in high school graduates' looms on the horizon, the ability of higher education leaders to understand what characteristics of the university brand are most compelling for prospective students is important to ensure enrollment objectives are met. This mixed-methods…

While university department heads are integral to the operation and culture of higher education institutions, they often experience little training or support to fulfill their complex and multifaceted role. At the same time, there is limited research on how heads come to understand their work or how such understandings shape their behavior. In…

College choice is one of the most significant decisions a family will make. Families with high socioeconomic status often hire independent educational consultants (IEC) to assist their family in college search activities. A review of the literature indicated a gap in the literature regarding IECs' understanding of the factors which influence their…

Lackluster BA completion rates have made it clear that improving postsecondary outcomes in the U.S. is not simply a matter of raising college enrollment rates. In addition to increasing the number of people who attend college, it is also important to increase the number of people who graduate. Over the years, scholars have identified many factors…

Institutions of higher learning today rely on tuition dollars to function. During a time when the pool of high school graduates is shrinking, colleges and universities must look to alternative target markets to meet enrollment goals, including those transferring from community college. Community college transfers have unique attributes that…

Grade repetition is one of the bottlenecks to Uganda's vision of producing skilled human capital to transform the nation's status from peasant to middle class. This study explored how education stakeholders perceived the implication of students' grade repetition at a secondary school level. I employed a qualitative approach with an embedded…

This study set out to examine factors that influence and motivate foundations in their decision-making strategies to support Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), and how decisions are shaped by the identity, characteristics, and institutional advancement offices at these institutions of higher learning. Twelve semi-structured interviews were…

The purpose of this study is to address the low participation of African American/Black students at private, predominantly White institutions (PPWIs), specifically exploring the influence the assumptions of administrators have of the current matriculation outcomes. The research question that drove the study is as follows: How do the assumptions…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the perceptions, behaviors and decision making of deans and directors of university support services on the use of social media. University support services play a major role in meeting the personal and academic needs of students. How they serve students has changed in recent years due…

While several models of college choice currently exist, many are decades old and very few examine the process of choosing an MBA program. At the same time, the popularity MBA program rankings continue to grow, however, it is not well understood how influential MBA program rankings are in the business school choice process. Given the lack of…

Most low-income, high-achieving students in the United States neither attend nor apply to selective universities despite research that shows that they are just as likely as their high-income peers to succeed if they do apply to those schools. Despite the fact that many universities have begun offering substantial financial aid packages that would…

Building on the research of National Board Certification and its effect on teacher quality, student achievement, and professional development, this dissertation seeks to explore the factors that influence teachers when it is time to renew their National Board Certification. Using a qualitative methodology, this study seeks to describe the process…

This dissertation has two components: social media fundraising and e-commerce. The first component of social media fundraising discusses social media users' charitable content generation in essay 1 and charitable giving in essay 2. In essay 1, we examine how reciprocity of followees affects social influence on users' charitable content generation.…