This dissertation examines the impacts of a last-dollar promise program on high school-to-college enrollments at a very large community college (VLCC) district in Texas. The research intends to add to the current literature on the growing popularity of promise programs at two-year community colleges. Specifically, this quantitative study examines…

Contribution: This qualitative study explores changes in engineering students' civic engagement as they transition from high school to college and uses Social Cognitive Theory to understand factors that influence civic engagement. Background: Engineering programs aim to graduate civically engaged engineers who serve their communities and advance…

The problem addressed in this study was the level of preparedness of first-year community college students enrolled in remedial math and English courses instead of entering college-level courses. Hence, many high school graduates are not satisfactorily prepared to endure the rigors of college coursework and have to take remedial courses. The…

The purpose of this descriptive, quantitative study is to explore the matriculation rates for first-time, full-time freshmen who were previously enrolled in dual enrollment courses while in high school at one of the 13 public community colleges in Tennessee. Percentages, means, standard deviations, ranges, percentages, and proportions were used to…

The future of individual and societal progress is largely dependent on students' success following completion of K-12 education. For most traditionally aged students, this entails a journey into higher education at colleges and universities. This transition is rife with pitfalls that may lead students to stop out, fail out, or make inadequate…

Using ongoing interviews and focus groups, this longitudinal study examines perceptions of eight students entering a state-serving, public university about the role of social class in identifying symbolic boundaries in different layers of the environment (e.g., from small group to school-wide) in the transition from high school to college.…

What is at stake when our young people attempt to belong to a college environment that reflects a world that does not want them for who they are? In this compelling book, Navajo scholar Amanda Tachine takes a personal look at 10 Navajo teenagers, following their experiences during their last year in high school and into their first year in…

This research brief highlights key similarities and variations in California's College Promise Programs. It describes the current program structures and provides reflections on how program characteristics relate to equitable student access and outcomes. This is the second in the CCPP brief series that sheds light on various aspects of the College…

Using data on incoming freshmen from 2018-2020 at the University of California, Davis, we analyze whether California students from private or charter high schools, compared to students from traditional public schools, arrive at college with a higher sense of expected belonging, more positive feelings, or higher expectations about adopting positive…

This research study examined the use of the Common Core curriculum on writing at an urban public high school and the use of learner-centered instruction on writing at an urban private high school, and how the two approaches may be connected to the writing achievement of male freshmen in college. I interviewed educators from high school through…

Using cross-institutional survey data from 407 first-year college students, differences in information literacy preparation and academic library experiences between community college students and students at four-year institutions are examined. Results show that first-year community college students are more likely to be novice library users,…

More U.S. community college students are enrolling without the requisite reading skills to be successful. Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students are following a similar pattern with a little less than half requiring remedial instruction when entering college. College-age readers were the first population that we studied to learn about reading and…

Does a student's high school grade point average (HSGPA) of 2.5 or greater determine or predict a successful post-secondary enrollment? For this research, historical data from the 2015-2021 cohorts of Upward Bound Catonsville (UBC) scholars were retrieved from the UBC Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) Blumen Database report. To ensure…

Community colleges may face challenges supporting the unique needs of language minority (LM) students whose primary language is not English. Florida provides a unique context for examining whether LM students who are considered underprepared for college-level coursework benefit more from traditional developmental education programs in reading and…

Many high school seniors envision walking up the marble steps and entering through the historic arched front door of a stately, column-lined, academic building on the first day of college. Or perhaps the building is a new, state of the art, technology laden, donor-funded building. But, these ideal visions generally do not include waking up early…