Purpose: The purpose of this journal-ready dissertation was to determine the extent to which differences existed in the attainment of Texas Education Agency approved industry-based certifications of Texas high school graduates by their ethnicity/race, gender, and economic status. In the first study, the degree to which the attainment of Texas…

Multiple factors influence a student's success in high school graduation. Individual factors such as disability, racial or ethnic identity, and gender may result in inequity in the school environment, interfering with learning and possibly leading to poorer educational outcomes. This secondary analysis of student educational records (N = 3,782)…

Career Technical Education (CTE)--a structured series of courses that provides high school students technical and vocational skills, paving the way to postsecondary education and careers--is key to aligning secondary education with both labor market needs and college opportunities. CTE provides high school students with the chance to engage in…

The 11th edition of "Knocking at the College Door" comes at a critical time for the country. Many sectors of the economy face workforce shortages, while higher education faces increasing skepticism about its value. The data and analyses within these pages will likely fuel further concerns for those across higher education as the nation…

This quantitative study was conducted to determine if a relationship exists between former Missouri Career and Technical Education (CTE) concentrators' Technical Skills Assessment (TSA) performance and attaining related placement after high school, specifically analyzing for differences among racial/ethnic and socioeconomic status (SES) groups.…

Washington's high school graduation rate has increased over the past decade. In 2022, 82 percent of high school students in the state graduated in four years, a six-percentage point increase over the 2013 graduation rate. This report looks at postsecondary enrollment trends for Washington high school graduates in the classes of 2020 and 2021…

Graduating from high school is an important step toward becoming a successful adult. It is evidence that one has met the standards set by the public school system. Standards-Based Reform has been pursued since the 1980s and culminated in the development of the Common Core State Standards that were implemented by most states between 2011 and 2015.…

This brief analyzes 4-year graduation rates among students ever classified as English learners (ever-ELs) and those never classified as English learners (never-ELs) at the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, and neighborhood income. We follow two cohorts of New York City students who entered ninth grade in 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 (N =…

This brief analyzes 4-year graduation rates among students ever classified as English learners (ever-ELs) and those never classified as English learners (never-ELs) at the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, and neighborhood income. We follow two cohorts of New York City students who entered ninth grade in 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 (N =…

This brief examines the experiences of California high school seniors from the graduating class of 2023, offering insights into their preparation, plans, and concerns for college prior to enrollment. Drawing on results from a large-scale survey of seniors, the findings reveal important variation in students' secondary school experiences and their…

Leveraging rich data on the universe of Texas high school graduates, we estimate how the relationship between geographic access to public two- and four-year postsecondary institutions and postsecondary outcomes varies across race-ethnicity and socioeconomic status. We find that students are sensitive to the distance they must travel to access…

This paper investigates the intersection of income and race in structuring access to higher education among students that participate in a national high-stakes exam in Brazil. Our objectives are (1) to estimate the probability of students coming from different income strata, racial groups, and performance levels to access higher education and (2)…

In 2021, the percentage of Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Hispanic adults who completed high school was below the national average. One of the U.S. Department of Education's goals is to ensure that every student has equal access to the high-quality education tools they need to graduate from high school and excel in college and their…

The labor-market payoff to workers with associate degrees in healthcare and STEM occupations is very high in Massachusetts. We examine whether this induced a growing proportion of students in MA community colleges (MACCs) to earn an associate degree (AD) in one of these fields. We do this by using multinomial logit analysis to compare trends…

Utilizing a lottery-based natural experiment, this study assessed the longer-term impact of early colleges on postsecondary degree attainment. It found that early colleges significantly increased the overall degree completion and associate degree completion rates within 10 years of expected high school graduation. While the impact on bachelor's…