Few studies examine whether financial aid affects college retention. This paper uses University of Oregon data to examine financial aid's affect on retention net of uniquely detailed enrollee attributes and conditioned on unobserved enrollee attributes identified by jointly modeling retention and enrollment. The results show that need- and…

The focus of the paper is the development of a novel conceptual framework that aims to remedy a critical mis-specification in prior research on the impact of financial aid on academic outcomes: the blending of the effect of aid eligibility with the influence of aid amounts on academic outcomes. To assess the impact of aid amounts received on…

Amid growing criticism of public universities, there is little discussion of what appropriate institutional evaluation would entail. Six-year graduation rates are commonly used, and public bachelors granting institutions have lower rates than private institutions, but with the growth in non-traditional college attendance, these can be misleading.…

The question addressed in this paper is whether there are signs that students' progression through high school to graduation has been affected by the efforts to increase school accountability, including high-stakes exit exams. If such accountability systems were able to raise student academic performance significantly in elementary and middle…

What steps are needed to be taken to rebuild public investment in America's higher education? In this article, the author offers three actions which he believes the US higher education community must collectively embrace and suggests that the higher education community should also learn to speak with a common voice. To help put that idea into…

This study explored factors that lead alternative education program completers eventually to drop out of school. When compared with alternative school peers who went on to graduate, certain differences emerge. Those disengaging are more likely to be students of color with lower achievement scores who do not easily engage with school or prosocial…

There are many reasons a student may become disinterested in academics and many ways they can fail in school and in society. Most educators will quickly admit nothing is more fulfilling than seeing a troubled student succeed in school and earn a diploma. The state of Wisconsin recognized this, a full decade before the No Child Left Behind Act, and…

According to a February 9, 2006 "New York Times" story headlined, "Panel Explores Standard Tests for Colleges," a new accountability era is descending upon a resistant higher education domain. The story describes the deliberations of a Bush-appointed commission considering imposition of standardized tests on college students. Ten days earlier, the…

An increasing number of urban districts are scrapping traditional high school grade structures, changing their retention policies, and devising more flexible routes toward graduation to address high dropout rates. Educators in Baltimore, Boston, Houston and Rochester, New York say they are particularly focused on the 9th grade, a year when many…

New Jersey leaders have launched a campaign to build support for boosting high school rigor, but some are worried that the effort could produce a higher dropout rate as the state phases out an alternative exam used by nearly 15 percent of its students. Part of the state's bid to raise expectations involves scrapping the Special Review Assessment,…

This report provides information on the outcomes of the Intervention for College Attendance Program, a program of competitive grants awarded to postsecondary institutions, professional organizations and community-based organizations. Funded programs focus on increasing the access and success of groups traditionally underrepresented in higher…

The Denver Public Schools (DPS) provide a unique opportunity to study the dynamics of school segregation within the context of rapid demographic changes and key policy changes. This paper, the first of two reports, focuses on the dynamics of segregation, demographic changes, and implications for graduation rates in the Denver Public Schools. It…

Since 1967, the Nevada State Legislature has mandated higher education institutions compile a comprehensive report on program plans. Therefore, this report is prepared in accordance to state law requiring the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) to prepare a biennial report for submission to the Nevada State Legislature that outlines a plan…

Using the data from Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, this issue of "Data Notes" is the second of a two-part series investigating the characteristics of late stop-outs--students who accumulate at least 30 credits within the first two years, only to stop out without completing credentials or transferring. The data show that male…

This study provides data from an existing review of secondary data and a survey of dual enrollment managers on the topic of Mississippi community and junior colleges' dual enrollment collaborations with secondary schools and parents of home-schooled students. Dual enrollment, also known as dual credit, concurrent enrollment, and credit based…