This case study analyzed a unique doctoral program in education at Dowling College, Long Island, New York that had an 88% graduation rate within seven years that included 60% of students of color in contrast with doctoral graduation rates in the United States that are an average of 38% within seven years with only 24% students of color graduating.…

Despite high levels of motivation, only 8% of single mothers who attend a community college will graduate (Cruse, Milli et al., 2019). As a component of this Dissertation in Practice, a systematic literature review was conducted to explore the reasons behind these unacceptably low success rates. Based on data from empathy interviews, peer-reviewed…

Educators and researchers have long sought to understand--and illuminate--factors outside of school that shape students' educational outcomes. In 2019, the Research Alliance published a policy brief ("Aggressive Policing and Academic Outcomes: Examining the Impact of Police "Surges" in NYC Students' Home Neighborhoods,"…

Earning a degree in higher education provides additional employment choices for every college student. It is an important factor for sustaining future earnings and job stability. The general problem is deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals face higher unemployment and underemployment rates than hearing peers. The specific problem addressed was how…

Persistence and graduation rates continue to be important student success outcomes for engineering programs. In part, these outcomes reflect the effectiveness of the educational experience that has been delivered to the students. This educational experience is shaped by three main factors: 1) the organizational context, 2) the peer environment,…

School systems across the country, like those in Oregon, continually attempt to improve their students' academic outcomes. Unfortunately, these costly efforts often fail to create lasting change. One factor in many of these failed improvement efforts is the lack of successfully implementing research-based practices (RBPs) at state and local…

Online courses provide flexible learning opportunities, but research suggests that students may learn less and persist at lower rates compared to face-to-face settings. However, few studies have investigated more distal effects of online education. In this study, we analyzed 6 years of institutional data for three cohorts of students in 13 large…

The low six-year graduation rate among American college students has been the focus of higher education research and practice for decades. At the same time, the increase in the societal focus on weight status has coincided with an increase in the experience of weight bias and weightbased discrimination in educational settings. However, little…

Our study is among the first to provide a comprehensive review of cross-national patterns of gender differences in various STEM-related constructs--achievement, beliefs, attitudes, aspirations, and participation, concerning country-level gender equality. We complement our review with empirical analyses utilizing rigorous methodologies and richer…

The rising cost of higher education has led to increased tuition costs for students and their families, forcing more students to secure larger amounts of debt to finance their educational pursuits. Although scholars have explored how student loan debt accumulation influences higher education persistence and graduation, an unexplored area of higher…

Inclusive, quality education promotes understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence among individuals and communities. Education holds the potential to reduce the likelihood of conflicts by fostering critical thinking, encouraging open dialogue and creating economic growth opportunities. The world urgently needs to recognize the role of…

Do older community college students build momentum toward graduation differently than their younger peers? One-third of students in community colleges are 25 years of age or older, and these students tend to have lower rates of graduation than their younger peers. Yet, we know little about how the factors that influence college graduation differ…

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, increasing attention has been paid to rural communities. For our study, we used a multicase study approach that included five states to study the difference between the rhetoric about the need to focus more attention on rural communities soon after the 2016 election and the practiced reality of state…

Academic mismatch, the incompatibility between applicants'/students' aptitude and their desired/current academic program, is considered a key predictor of degree attainment. Evaluations of this link tend to be cross-sectional, however, focusing on specific stages of the college pipeline and ignoring mismatch at prior or later stages and their…

Given the large differences in educational attainment observed across non-Indigenous population groups in Canada, understanding when these differences emerge and what may explain them is an important first step in informing policy discussions on the issue. Using the British Columbia kindergarten to Grade 12 dataset, the Postsecondary Student…