How much of a difference does it make whether a student of a given academic ability enters a more or a less selective four-year college? Some studies claim that attending a more academically selective college markedly improves one's graduation prospects. Others report the reverse: an advantage from attending an institution where one's own skills…

Financial aid may be particularly critical for promoting full-time enrollment, continuous enrollment, and a manageable balance of school and work responsibilities, which influence the likelihood of timely degree completion (Adelman, 2006; Attewell, Heil, & Reisel, 2012; Hossler et al., 2009). For example, Attewell, Heil, and Reisel (2012)…

In today's economy, graduating from high school is more important than ever. The economic consequences of dropping out of high school are more severe than in the past, with diminished job prospects and life-time earnings (Rouse, 2007). There are also substantial social costs associated with high school dropouts such as lower productivity and tax…

Within a challenging environment of financial hardships and budget cuts, higher education institutions have been struggling to maintain the balance between quality and productivity using the available resources while answering to calls for more accountability and proof of effective and efficient institutional performance. This study explored the…

Many researchers have explored the relationships between the likelihood of graduating from college and demographic and pre-college factors such as gender, race/ethnicity, high school grade point average (GPA), and standardized test scores. However, additional factors such as a student's college major, home address, or use of learning support in…

When teaching is considered as a collaborative activity, the aim of research projects in schools needs to exceed the individual and personal levels and aim to contribute to research-informed reflection of a team of teachers. Within this multiple case study, we adapted the graduation research project within a primary teacher education programme,…

Student retention has garnered increased attentions in higher education. Drawing from various theoretical perspectives, researchers have developed multiple theoretical models to explain or predict student retention. Most models, however, were intended for traditional aged, full-time students at 4-year colleges or universities. The rapid growth of…

There has been a steady increase in college enrollment rates in recent decades, which has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in graduation rates. If this discrepancy is partly due to insufficient effort exerted by students, policies that aim at rewarding effort explicitly may succeed in increasing graduation rates. A unique and rich…

Objective: This study examined how freshman year substance use prospectively predicted time to college graduation, and whether delayed graduation predicted postponed adoption of adult roles and future substance use. Participants: Participants were part of a longitudinal study that began in 2004. The first analyses focused on freshman year (N =…

College admission typically requires students to present their high school GPA and a standardized score, such as ACT or SAT. High school GPA is usually attributed to students' cumulative effort during their high school career and is often used as a measure of resilience. The ACT score allows students' aptitude to be assessed. Contemporary…

The purpose of this study was to identify which aspects of mentoring contribute to intent to graduate, college GPA, and levels of thriving in a sample of 416 juniors and seniors at a public university in Southern California. A secondary interest was to determine the extent to which the contribution of the mentoring components to the variation in…

By August 1 of each year, each charter school in New York State is required by law to complete and submit an Annual Report to the New York State Education Department's (NYSED) Charter School Office and to the school's charter entity, and to post the report on the charter school's website. The Annual Report Guidelines include general instructions…

This report from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and the To&Through Project examines two- and four-year college enrollment patterns among Chicago Public Schools (CPS) graduates over the last 10 years. CPS graduates' immediate college enrollment rates increased over the decade, with 63 percent of 2015 graduates enrolling…

College-for-all has become the new American dream. Most high school students today express a desire to attend college, and 90 percent of on-time high school graduates enroll in higher education in the eight years following high school. Yet, degree completion rates remain low for nontraditional students--students who are older, low-income, or have…

With new and innovative efforts occurring within higher education, it is important to analyze these efforts. The purpose of this study was to examine competency-based education (CBE), and to improve and expand the research that exists related to CBE; while also describing a difference in degree completion proportion between CBE and the traditional…