The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) has conducted several studies on the relationship between prior learning assessment (PLA) and adult student outcomes. Do Methods Matter? PLA, Portfolio Assessment, and the Road to Completion and Persistence presents the findings from a study that examines the relationship between PLA and…

The Struggle is Real! (A slang term used in the Black Community). Everyone has a story. Everyone has a journey, regardless of race, color, or creed. However, what research and lived experiences of African American women such as myself reveals is that "the struggle" is different for African American women and we encounter more barriers to…

This study examined persistence to graduation at a public Midwestern university from the perspective of the constructs of spirituality and grit, using historical demographic, academic, and survey data from nine cohorts of students. Significant correlation between spirituality and grit was found, leading to the development of the SPIRIT theory and…

We examine GPA and timely graduation among Native Hawaiian (NH) students using a unique dataset of bachelor degree recipients from the University of Hawai'i. Our findings indicate that NHs have lower average GPA at graduation and the differences persist across the entire distribution of GPA. More troubling were the larger differences in GPA…

Objective: The process by which students decide to stay in college has been primarily based on models that are independent of geographic context. This article describes the local labor market in which community college students are situated and discusses the multiple and complex ways these labor markets impact student decisions to persist and…

36 million Americans in the National Student Clearinghouse database today hold some postsecondary education but no completion and are no longer enrolled (also known as "Some College, No Degree"). 10% of this population already have two years' worth of academic progress up until last enrollment (the group called Potential Completers).…

Education during recovery could impact a forensic psychiatric patient's community reintegration; however, individual education goals for patients can be difficult due to the lack of available parameters. The purpose of this study was to test whether age at first hospitalization is predictive of educational attainment among forensic psychiatric…

In this paper, we show that the design and decentralized, school-based scoring of New York's high school exit exams--the Regents Examinations--led to the systematic manipulation of test sores just below important proficiency cutoffs. Our estimates suggest that teachers inflate approximately 40 percent of test scores near the proficiency cutoffs.…

'Education is the key' is often used as a metaphor in remote Australian First Nations communities to indicate the importance of learning to achieve some measure of socio-economic advantage--education is seen as a vehicle for advancement. First Nations people have enthusiastically bought into education and training vehicle. High school completion…

Income gaps in college enrollment, persistence, and graduation raise concerns for those interested in equal opportunity in higher education. We present findings from a randomly assigned scholarship for low-income students at a medium-sized public 4-year university. The program focused solely on the first four semesters of enrollment and tied aid…

This study examines the relationships between student perception of college experiences and student characteristics, and their key educational outcomes--cumulative GPA, completion, and university transfer--for two years of CCSSE administration at Tennessee community colleges. It models the outcomes via Tobit and logistic regression and event…

Background: Future scientists in engineering fields are expected, and even demanded, to be creative and innovative. Longitudinal studies pertaining to how creativity and academic achievement grow and develop over time remain limited. Purpose: This study examines (a) relationships between the creative potential of first-year engineering students…

The college promise movement is aimed toward making the attendance and completion of college affordable for eligible Americans in hundreds of local communities and states throughout the United States. Many college promise programs are designed with the intent of enabling students to start and complete college degree and/or postsecondary…

This study illustrates how respondents' stated choices (the discrete choice experiment method) combined with the random utility framework can be used to model preferences for higher education. The flexibility offered by stated preference data circumvents limitations of other approaches, and allows quantifying young people' preferences for selected…

This analytical report responds to the current policy interest in some states in offering "tuition-free college" to income-eligible students attending certain public colleges and universities. In most cases only public two-year colleges are covered, although New York State's Excelsior Scholarship program also covers public four-year…