Sadly, an enduring legacy of the United States is inequities between groups of people based on their skin color. These inequities are ingrained within the educational system, such as a lack of opportunities and interventions and significant gaps in support and resources that target underserved populations. The problem that this study addressed was…

The problem addressed through this study is that the completion rates of doctoral programs in the United States range as low as 40%. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of higher education leaders (HELs) on their successes and challenges in increasing completion rates in their doctoral programs. The list of values…

The purpose of Education for Homeless Children and Youth (EHCY) program in the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (2015) is to protect the educational rights of students experiencing homelessness across the United States. Despite the coordinated efforts of State and Local Educational Agencies to carry out these mandates and ensure equitable…

Adult learners seeking to earn a high school equivalency (HSE), like the general education development (GED), must often overcome major difficulties to persist (Comings, 2007) and succeed academically (Hansman & Mott, 2010). Adult learners might require hundreds of hours of training in GED programs to make up for early departure in high school…

This research project was designed to attend to inequity for Indigenous students, communities, and knowledges in a northern British Columbian district. The aims of the article are to share the systemic and individual transformation for Indigenous learners and their families based on the strengths and barriers they perceive in the system. Presented…

Even though teen pregnancy rates are declining, teen pregnancy remains a complex and problematic phenomenon in our culture. The problem addressed by this study was that although the number of births to teen mothers is decreasing, less than 50% of teen mothers are completing high school. The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was…

Using data from the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), longitudinal trends in graduate degree completion rates for Hispanic and White students were analyzed over a period of 17 years (2002-2019). The results indicated that there was a significant positive…

Higher education has been touted as critical to social mobility, even greater longevity; however, these benefits accrue with degree completion, and many students who begin college never earn a degree. Using the most recent Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), we sought to understand variation in college completion rates and test…

This dissertation measures and describes the factors that impact doctoral student persistence. Using a mixed methods cases study design, I analyzed institutional student record data, survey data on caregiving responsibilities, and data from semi-structured interviews with PhD students at a STEM-focused, public research university in the American…

The problem at the southeastern university study site is that adult nontraditional learners taking classes on campus are graduating at a low rate, which may indicate a lack of needed support services. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the learning support needs of adult nontraditional learners and institutional support…

The problem that was addressed in this study was that Title I high school teachers, in Southeastern Michigan, are unclear about how to accommodate their students, who experience parental incarceration and without the intervention of appropriate strategies, these students face a high risk of never completing their high school education and a high…

Graduating from high school is an important step toward becoming a successful adult. It is evidence that one has met the standards set by the public school system. Standards-Based Reform has been pursued since the 1980s and culminated in the development of the Common Core State Standards that were implemented by most states between 2011 and 2015.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of academically successful Foster Care Alumni (FCAs) in Tennessee who enrolled in postsecondary education, either a trade school, a two-year college, or a four-year university, and graduated from that postsecondary institution. Youth in foster care faced barriers to their education in K-12…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to describe the academic experiences of low socioeconomic status ESL learners enrolled in a mid-sized urban community college located in Pennsylvania. The theory that guided this study is Walberg's theory on educational productivity, as it looks at how learners' psychological…

This phenomenological qualitative study examined the student experience in an online course for Youth Formerly in Foster Care (YFFC), specifically, the challenges in learning in an online course and the environmental protective factors and personal strengths utilized to successfully complete an online course with a C or better. YFFC lag behind…