Educators, researchers, and policymakers across the political spectrum agree that America must send more of its young people to college and find ways to help them graduate. Yet it has been difficult to design and implement effective strategies for dramatically increasing college enrollment and graduation. In Chicago, an intervention now under way,…

In recent years, there has been unprecedented national focus on the importance of increasing graduation rates for community college students. Many reforms have been tried, but college completion rates remain stubbornly low: Only one-third of entering students graduate with a degree or certificate within five years. Reforms are often short-term,…

In recent years, there has been unprecedented national focus on the importance of increasing the stubbornly low graduation rates of community college students. Most reforms that have been tried are short-term and address one or only a few barriers to student success. The City University of New York's (CUNY's) Accelerated Study in Associate…

In this essay, the authors accomplish three tasks: (a) identify common limitations of programs designed to increase the success rates of Latina/o college students; (b) describe the common characteristics of programs that exhibit effective practice; and (c) provide a framework to guide colleges and universities in designing effective program…

This causal-comparative study researched the effects of dual enrollment and Huskins Bill course experience on traditional-age North Carolina community college students. The study examined course effects on academic success and graduation rate using quantitative statistical measures including parametric and nonparametric means comparisons. The…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of high school transition strategies for ninth grade students in comparison to the traditional high school experience of first time ninth grade students. This study compared the English End-of-Course (EOC) test scores of first time ninth grade students in a traditional high school setting…

The city of New Orleans has embarked on an historic experiment reinventing its schools--once considered among the worst in the country--from a centralized, single district model of education to a two district model in which both the Recovery School District (RSD) and the preexisting Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) both operate direct run and…

Previous studies found that students enrolled in introductory engineering graphics courses at a historically black university (HBCU) had significantly lower than average test scores on the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Visualization of Rotations (PSVT) when it was administered during the first week of class. Since the ability to visualize is…

When in 2002 Maine launched its pioneering Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) that equipped every one of the state's 30,000 seventh- and eighth-grade public school students and teachers with their own Apple iBook, all eyes were on the endeavor. As the first statewide one-to-one deployment, MLTI's $37 million education experiment…

Ninth grade often is considered a make-or-break year in determining whether students will be successful in high school and beyond. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) created the Texas Ninth Grade Transition and Intervention Program to ease the transition of at-risk students into high school and increase the likelihood that they graduate on time and…

The Bradley report (2008) recommended that there be an increase in the percentage of young Australian's completing a university degree, with a subsequent target set by the Australian Federal Government to 40% of 25-34 years olds holding a first degree by 2025. As students who transition to university following completion of high school in…

Historically Black Colleges and Universities have been in existence in the United States since the mid-1800s. Currently there are 105, which include private and public institutions, with most being four-year programs. In this study, we compare graduation rates of Historically Black Colleges and Universities to predominately White institutions and…

This dissertation consists of three chapters that examine the effects of school and students improvement interventions. The first chapter investigates whether, for whom, and under which conditions high school mathematics and science course graduation requirements (CGRs) affect student achievement and educational attainment. Drawing on data from…

Service-learning has been put forth as one of the proposed solutions to increasing social capital. However, service-learning research has not significantly addressed the impact of service learning on social capital. Unlike most previous studies, this research used quantitative analysis to measure the effect of university service-learning programs…

Increasing education among low-income parents is a vital component of policies to improve families' economic status. Educational attainment matters: between 1979 and 2005, wages for those with college and advanced degrees rose by 22 and 28 percent, respectively, while wages for high school graduates remained stagnant and wages for high school…