There is increasing attention on the retention of international students, with many stakeholders desiring to keep international students for long-term economic growth. This study examined the factors affecting international students choosing to stay in Finland 5 years after initial enrollment, with particular focus on the role graduation plays in…

Across Massachusetts, legislators, policymakers, educators, families, and communities are engaged in important conversations about whether to continue using student performance on the MCAS tests as part of the state's high-school graduation requirements. This document presents lessons drawn from 15-plus years of research on educational opportunity…

Competency-based education (CBE) is a learner-centric framework that emphasizes what students "know and can show" more than how much time they spend in the classroom. CBE advocates claim that by allowing students to take as little or as much time as they need to demonstrate their mastery of course competencies, students develop higher…

Degree attainment is a shared goal of college students, higher education institutions, and the larger society, as graduates have lower rates of unemployment, higher rates of civic engagement, pay higher taxes, and are able to better prepare future generations for academic success as compared to their counterparts (Museus et al., 2008).…

Higher education has been touted as critical to social mobility, even greater longevity; however, these benefits accrue with degree completion, and many students who begin college never earn a degree. Using the most recent Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), we sought to understand variation in college completion rates and test…

The charter school movement encompasses many school models. In Massachusetts in the 2010's, the site of our study, urban charter schools primarily used "No Excuses" practices, whereas nonurban charters had greater model variety. Using randomized admissions lotteries, we estimate the impact of charter schools by locality on college…

Using recent 6-year college graduation data from the U.S. Department of Education, for the nation as a whole and the 50 states and District of Columbia, the respective graduation percentages for white and black students were compared employing the four-fifths rule for adverse impact, first proposed in the Federal Uniform Guidelines on Employee…

Black male retention rates in college tend to be lower than they are for Asians, Whites, and Latino males as well as their gendered counterparts in college. Various factors play a role in the higher attrition rates of Black males in higher education. However, there are programmatic initiatives that can contribute to the academic and career success…

For the U.S. to regain the top ranking in the world for college degree attainment, Latinos will need to earn 6.2 million degrees by 2030. To reach the degree attainment goal by 2030, the U.S. can: close the degree completion gap by accelerating Latino completion while increasing for all students and scale up programs and initiatives that work for…

At least one third of all U.S. college students don't get a degree, even six years after they enroll. Earlier research focusing on trends through 1990 found broad declines in college graduation rates, especially among men attending less-selective four-year schools. Since then, however, the picture of college enrollment has changed dramatically,…

The purpose of this quantitative ex post facto research study was to determine if, and to what extent, a difference existed in the Federal Graduation Rate (FGR) and Graduation Success Rate (GSR) of African American NCAA D1 FBS football student-athletes for those who had a head coach turnover versus those who did not in the United States. Complex…

Concerns about rising college costs and uncertain economic returns have combined with a wave of populist backlash to reduce public trust in higher education, which plummeted to new lows in 2023. President Biden, who ran his 2020 campaign on a platform that included student loan forgiveness and free community college, has focused some of his recent…

The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of academically successful Foster Care Alumni (FCAs) in Tennessee who enrolled in postsecondary education, either a trade school, a two-year college, or a four-year university, and graduated from that postsecondary institution. Youth in foster care faced barriers to their education in K-12…

Analyzing degree attainment data over a 30-year period, the authors found that relative to their enrollment, HBCUs overproduce Black graduates who obtain education degrees compared to non-HBCUs. Furthermore, Black men receiving education degrees at HBCUs do so at higher rates than their overall enrollment. Implications for school districts,…

This study identifies factors contributing to the success of foster care alumni (FCA) who graduate from post-secondary education (PSE), despite institutions devoting little effort to making PSE accessible to FCA. Nine FCA PSE graduates were interviewed about their success. Responses were analyzed using an exploratory method to identify themes…