It is widely understood in the higher education community that students from the lowest socioeconomic (SES) status achieve lower college graduation rates than those from other SES, even when controlling for other variables. Certain programs and services have been shown to positively affect student persistence, even when compared by student SES and…

A meta-analysis of 35 studies found that social class (socioeconomic status) is related to social integration among students in higher education: Working-class students are less integrated than middle-class students. This relation generalized across students' gender and year of study, as well as type of social class measure (parental education and…

Using a 17-year longitudinal design, this study examined the role of personal and family factors assessed early in life, and also academic and social experiences assessed in the first year of college, in predicting college completion. We followed a sample of 444 French-speaking Canadian children from middle to upper socioeconomic backgrounds (66%…

In Europe there is a growing concern among educators and policy makers that students are not well-prepared to start a Master programme. This study draws on longitudinal research conducted at four universities in the Netherlands and a follow-up exploratory purposively chosen from one of the study sites. In Study 1, differences in academic…

This study examined what combination of students' adjustment, institutional attachment, Scholastic Assessment Test scores, high school class rank, college grade point average (GPA), adaptive style, self-efficacy, and help-seeking would discriminate persisters from nonpersisters after 1 year of college. Researchers investigated the degree of…