According to this paper, distance education exists as a means to provide access to students who might otherwise not participate in higher education due to any number of constraints, whether internal or external. Sinclair Community College is an urban, commuter college located in Dayton, Ohio. It has a fall headcount of roughly 20,000 students,…

This is a report on the measurements of institutional effectiveness indicators at Northern Virginia Community College from 1992 to 1997. The report looks at the following indicators: (1) persistence rate of first-time students; (2) persistence rate of full-time first-time students; (3) persistence rate of part-time first-time students; (4)…

This study explored the role of financial aid in promoting year-to-year persistence over a five-year period following reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in 1992. The study cohort included 6,711 full-time beginning freshmen in the fall 1993/1994 terms at Arizona State University. Variables examined were (1) effects of receiving any…

This study addressed the question of how much graduation rates would improve if new students were followed for 10 instead of four or six years from their date of first enrollment; it also compared enrollment and graduation patterns of new freshmen and new transfers to see if graduation rates were similar after 10 years. Participants were all…

This study was designed to measure the performance of academically underprepared students who complete remediation, compared with underprepared students who do not complete remediation. The study was conducted on 766 full-time students at Ivy Tech State College, a two-year technical institution in Indiana. All of the students included were…

This report presents retention and graduation patterns of full-time undergraduate students at Maryland's public four-year colleges and universities from 1979-98, and specifically the number and percentage of students who were retained at their original public four-year campus and those who graduated from any senior college or university in the…

This study examined motivational factors responsible for the retention of experienced teachers in Jamaica. Using a stratified sample of Jamaican teachers in training, the study compared the motivations for teaching of 821 novice student teachers with the motivations of 206 student teachers having more than 3 years of teaching experience. Data from…

It is not uncommon for beginning teachers in Queensland (Australia) to be assigned their first teaching placement in a rural area. Many of these teachers stay there for the minimum time that they must, then seek to relocate to a coastal city. The literature and interviews with beginning rural teachers suggest that those who view the experience…

This report describes the methods and procedures used for the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study: 1996-2001 (BPS:1996/2001). These students, who started their postsecondary education during the 1995-96 academic year, were first interviewed in 1996 as part of the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:96). A follow-up…

National longitudinal retention data on 52,898 students at 65 colleges and universities were used to generate formulas for estimating any institution's expected retention rate based on its students' high school grades, admission test scores, and racial and gender composition. Separate formulas were computed for estimating degree completion rates…

A survey of 467 business students at Virginia Commonwealth University investigated results of the business school's tuition differential pricing strategy, which charges a higher tuition in order to provide students with strong computer and technological instruction and support. Results indicated the additional services created added value for…

Based on enrollment figures, it would appear colleges and universities have become more accessible to women, but several research indicators contradict this. A study at York University (Ontario) investigated the interactive effects of gender and social integration measures on accessibility, based on differential participation in extracurricular…

A mentoring program matched 15 Navajo teacher education students with Native American faculty and staff at Northern Arizona University through preassessments that determined mentors' and students' preferred style of mentoring. Mid- and postproject evaluations revealed that specified career and psychosocial needs of students were met and that all…

Freeman Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, created the Meyerhoff Program to increase the number of African American males earning doctorates, and ultimately to increase minority faculty in engineering, medicine, and the sciences. Program features include mentoring, leadership training, and early intervention…

Questionnaires that were developed to measure factors in the academic persistence of minority college students were administered to 454 Mexican American students at two large southwestern universities. Both the Cultural Congruity Scale and the University Environment Scale were significant predictors of academic persistence of Mexican American…