Objectives: The relative high rates of homelessness and housing insecurity among college students has become a public health concern within the U.S. This study explores the relationship between housing instability in relation to academic and mental health outcomes. Participants: College students attending a larger public university (N = 1,416…

To study beliefs about ability and STEM major choice, I conduct a field experiment where I provide students with information that they are above average in their top fields of study. I find that STEM students are more likely to switch out of their major and that non-STEM students fail to switch into STEM at the same rates as other fields. I also…

Purpose: Faculty-in-Residence (FIR) programs are implemented based on research that shows positive effects on student success when students interact with faculty outside of the classroom. However, most research is limited by cross-sectional studies of only students and does not look at the Faculty-in-Residence programs from a holistic perspective…

"A college degree can be a ticket out of poverty." Yet, only 22% of the country's Black population and 15% of the Hispanic population have a minimum of a bachelor's degree, compared with over one-half of Asians and about one-third of whites. Strong academic success in foundation courses and courses that fulfill general education…

Underrepresented minority (URM) college students have been steadily earning degrees in relatively less-lucrative fields of study since the mid-1990s. A decomposition reveals that this widening gap is principally explained by rising stratification at public research universities, many of which increasingly enforce GPA restriction policies that…

In the ever-growing discussion of how to build and support honors programs that reflect the diverse communities our institutions serve, the recruitment of transfer students has only recently been identified as a key avenue to enacting more equitable programs. Reflecting on four years of recruiting, enrolling, and graduating transfer students in…

Countless mothers and fathers have left behind familiar landscapes, beloved family and friends, and the comfort of certainty to give their children lives better than their own. It is no coincidence that many of these parents chose as their new home the United States of America, a country founded on the promise of public education. The proud home…

Underrepresented minority (URM) college students have been steadily earning degrees in relatively less-lucrative fields of study since the mid-1990s. A decomposition reveals that this widening gap is principally explained by rising stratification at public research universities, many of which increasingly enforce GPA restriction policies that…

The programs Minority Access in Research Careers (MARC) and Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) are funded by the National Institutes of Health to increase the number of students from underrepresented backgrounds earning degrees in the biomedical sciences. This article estimates the impact of participation in MARC and RISE on…

To address the challenges of fostering a sense of belonging and ultimately improving academic success, the University of Southern California 's (USC's) Pullias Center for Higher Education and the Get Schooled Foundation partnered with California State University Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) to create an online tool called "Toros Charge On!"…

In 2015, the University of Southern California (USC) began a longitudinal, mixed-methods evaluation of the Thompson Scholars Learning Communities (TSLC), a comprehensive college transition program that provides students with multiple, integrated types of support. The evaluation as a whole examined whether, how, and why TSLC, as implemented at the…

Faculty assessments are a hot topic in academia. Mostly considered an unproven statistic holding the professor hostage for a good grade, the benefits are still in discussion. At course end, we expect students to have the ability to analyze what we think they should have learned. In reality, most students do not have the maturity to realize…

We examine the impacts of being awarded a Cal Grant, among the most generous state merit aid programs. We exploit variation in eligibility rules using GPA and family income cutoffs that are ex ante unknown to applicants. Cal Grant eligibility increases degree completion by 2 to 5 percentage points in our reduced form estimates. Cal Grant also…

This paper investigates the predictive validity of the Revised SAT (R-SAT) score, proposed by Freedle (2003) as an alternative to compensate minority students for the potential harm caused by the relationship between item difficulty and ethnic DIF observed in the SAT. The R-SAT score is the score minority students would have received if only the…

As the largest higher education system across the nation, California State University (CSU) has been championing advancements in instructional technology and teaching innovations across face-to-face, interactive television, hybrid, and online platforms. This report focuses on needs pertinent to the southern San Joaquin Valley and Antelope Valley.…