Remedial courses have been part of the college landscape in the United States since at least the 1800s when nearly 250,000 students were placed into remedial courses. Traditionally, students who enrolled in remedial courses were placed into that course solely based on one test score. Students who enrolled in traditional remedial courses were more…

As participation in online learning continues to expand, higher education institutions must implement policies and procedures to ensure quality at the course, program, and institution levels. In this paper, the authors describe a process that the State University of New York (SUNY) System implemented, utilizing the OLC Quality Scorecard, to help…

Increasingly, colleges and universities are being compared and evaluated based on the outcomes that their students experience. While both self-evaluation and accountability are valuable, one should be careful that the right outcomes are measured. Using data from 21 community colleges, we find that traditional measures often ignore key positive…

The prevalence and emergence of college promise programs presents interesting and important methodological challenges. Based on their immediate access to de-identified data of applicants and enrollees, institutional researchers are in a privileged position to rigorously assess the effect of these programs in a myriad of outcomes. This study is a…

Depression and anxiety disorders are common among college students. These disorders may impact a student from being successful in various aspects of their personal and professional life; the level of support one receives matters to success. Through this qualitative phenomenological study, I explored the level of mental health services marketed to…

In response to rising college tuition and student debt over the past three decades, some institutions, localities, and states have implemented a range of tuition-free promise programs to promote college access and success. Programs vary widely in their design features, including eligibility stipulations and award structure. I explore the growing…

In 2019, MDRC launched the Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) project to improve college completion rates for traditionally underserved students, such as students from low-income backgrounds and students of color, at community and broad-access colleges (those that have open or minimally selective admissions…

This paper advances a model describing how peer assessment supports self-assessment. Although prior research demonstrates that peer assessment promotes self-assessment, the connection between these two activities is underspecified. This model, the assessment cycle, draws from theories of self-assessment to elaborate how learning takes place…

Despite the attention given to student retention for nearly half a century, college graduation and persistence rates have not improved in over two decades. Furthermore, time to degree rates suggest that it is taking more time to earn degrees. Consequently, there is a significant amount of individual and financial expense required to earn a college…

The American Talent Initiative's Student Success Research Grant Program supported research studies aimed at deepening our understanding of the institutional practices and strategies that can improve student success at high-graduation-rate institutions. The findings will offer actionable recommendations for supporting lower-income students, while…

How should colleges determine whether students are placed into developmental or college-level courses? Each year, colleges place millions of students into developmental math and English courses upon enrollment. To do so, colleges most often use a high-stakes placement test, which numerous research studies have shown to be highly inaccurate in…

This study examines the impact of "Promise" programs on postsecondary institutions' decision-making. Promise programs have garnered widespread attention in the U.S., especially after the announcement of the Kalamazoo Promise, but relatively little scholarly research. Promise programs provide grant aid to all students from a particular…

We explored how students view the teaching evaluation process and assessed their self-reported behaviors when completing student evaluations of teaching (SETs). We administered a 28-item survey assessing these views to students from a cross section of majors across 20 institutions (N = 597). Responses to this measure were analyzed using…

The purpose of the study was to compare students' achievements, perceptions and evaluations of fully online and web-enhanced courses taken at a technical college in South Texas in order to determine if students achievement, perceptions, and evaluations of course design was better in one modality over the other. The study collected information on…

In 2012, more than five percent of all postsecondary students were veterans or currently serving in the military, and 43% attended a public 2-year institution (Ahern, Foster, & Head, 2012). The Collegiate Veteran Affairs Program, at a public 2-year college in the southeastern part of the United States, serves as the point of contact for…