First-generation (FG) students are generally less likely than their continuing-generation (CG) peers to persist and complete a degree. Using student data available at initial enrollment, this multi-institutional study examines retention and transfer at the second year in relation to academic readiness, financial resources, college intentions,…

This study examined the value of using measures of academic "tilt" and vocational interest "tilt" to predict whether students will declare a STEM major during their first term in college. Academic tilt looks at students' relative academic strengths by appropriately comparing their math and science achievement levels to their…

As new initiatives and programs are being increasingly implemented to promote STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) interest and participation among U.S. students, the percentage of students who declare a STEM-related major in college continues to lag behind what would be expected based on students' intentions. Such findings…

The inaugural "Higher Education Research Digest" was released in 2017 (see ED581669) along with the "Enrollment Management Database," a tool assisting enrollment managers, admissions personnel, and other college administrators with student recruitment, enrollment, and success strategies. For this second edition of the…

We surveyed 237 first-time college students to examine the extent to which social-cognitive factors--self-efficacy, perceptions of mentorship, high school GPA, ACT scores, first-semester college GPA, and demographic characteristics-- influence freshmen's intent to persist. Standard multiple regression and MANOVA were conducted to determine the…

Noncognitive attributes as the researchers have measured them do correlate with college GPA, but the incremental validity associated with these measures is relatively small. The noncognitive measures are correlated with other valued dimensions of student performance beyond the achievement reflected in college grades. There were much smaller…