Lackluster BA completion rates have made it clear that improving postsecondary outcomes in the U.S. is not simply a matter of raising college enrollment rates. In addition to increasing the number of people who attend college, it is also important to increase the number of people who graduate. Over the years, scholars have identified many factors…

Undergraduates (N = 2,823) at 6 universities were surveyed longitudinally to examine the relevance of student home setting on the transition to university. Preliminary results indicated that rural students seem less likely to attend large, ethnically diverse universities. Hierarchical linear models revealed that "proximal rural" students…

Choosing a college is one of the first important decisions that many young adults undertake. Popular media suggests how students should find an appropriate college based on traditional practices (Hallet, 2008; Kulman, 2007), yet, many aspects of the reality experienced by new kinds of students and colleges is largely ignored in the college choice…

This dissertation sought to explore the choice-of-college decision of academically talented students using Chapman's (1981) Model of College Choice to inform the selection of variables. This study focused on what factors influenced the decision of students who earned an A/A+ average in high school to enroll in their first-choice institution of…

The topic of distance from home is often discussed when students begin narrowing down colleges they want to apply to; however, there is a scarcity of research actually examining student behavior. The purpose of this study is to address this research gap using data based on a national sample of nearly one million students. Distance was computed in…