Improving college access and completion is vital to California's economic well-being. Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) projections show that the state will need one million more college graduates with a bachelor's degree by 2025 in order to satisfy labor force demand. As the costs of attending college have grown, grant and scholarship…

In recent times, the number of studies on non-cognitive skills has increased. Apart from using a score for noncognitive skills (gauged via a questionnaire), many of these investigations involve adult respondents who had already completed their educational careers at the time of the study in question. In this paper, using data on Japanese students,…

Drawing from 34 in-depth interviews, we examined the senior-year transitions of second-generation immigrant (SGI) college students, who are members of the first generation in their families to grow up in the US. We considered the ways SGI college seniors made meaning of parental involvement and negotiated relationships with parents during this…

This study examines the impact of a "natural experiment" that gave students the choice to place into or out of developmental math because of an unintended mistake made by a community college. During self-placement, more students chose to enroll in gateway college- and transfer-level math courses, however, greater proportions of female,…

In June 2013, former Texas Governor Rick Perry signed into law House Bill (HB) 5, 83rd Texas Legislature, Regular Session, which established a new high school graduation program--the Foundation High School Program--for students entering Grade 9 in 2014-15 and reduced the number of state assessments required for graduation. The legislation gave the…

Due to extensive research, we now know that in spite of extraordinary success in expanding access to American higher education over the last 60 years, far too little has been done to ensure that students complete college, even when they take 50 percent more time to complete the degree than full-time attendance should require. Obstacles to success…

Did the World War II (WWII) GI Bill increase the probability of completing high school and further affect the probability of poverty and employment for the cohorts for whom it benefited? This paper studies whether the GI Bill, one of the largest public financial aid policies for education, affected low education levels in addition to its…

This document offers a brief guide to understanding Virginia's system for holding schools accountable for raising student achievement. Virginia's accountability system supports teaching and learning by setting rigorous academic standards--known as the Standards of Learning (SOL)--and through annual statewide assessments of student achievement.…

The Vermont School Register is a student record-keeping document required by Vermont statute. The purpose of the school register is to document each of Vermont school's continuous year-to-year cycle of enrolling students, to record daily attendance, to report dropouts and graduates, and to report year-end attendance to the Agency of Education. It…

Each year, roughly 30% of first-year students at US baccalaureate institutions do not return for their second year and billions of dollars are spent educating these students. Yet, little quantitative research has analyzed the causes and possible remedies for student attrition. What's more, most of the previous attempts to model attrition at…

The road to doctoral completion is often fraught with barriers, self-doubt, and complications. Creighton, Creighton, and Parks (2010, "Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning" 18(1), 39-52. doi:10.1080/13611260903448342) asserted that mentoring plays a crucial role in the development and success of graduate students, especially…

In this pre-registered study, we analyze the effects of need-based financial aid grant offers on the educational outcomes of low-income college students based on a large-scale randomized experiment (n=48,804). We find evidence that the grant offers increase two-year persistence by 1.7 percentage points among four-year college students. The…

In response to the 2016 "Review of Australia's Research Training System," the Australian Government made a commitment to monitor and undertake analysis of issues surrounding representation of equity groups in higher degree by research (HDR) training. This report presents analysis and selected data on enrolments, commencements and…

Many people within and outside of higher education view honors programs as providing meaningful academic experiences that promote learning and growth for high-achieving students. To date, the research exploring the link between honors participation and college grades and retention has obtained mixed results; some of the seemingly conflicting…

We use nationally representative survey data from three cohorts of bachelor's degree recipients to examine military veterans' student loan debt at graduation and their employment and earnings 1, 4, and 10 years after graduation, relative to observably similar graduates. We also examine whether the effects of veteran status depend on college…