High impact educational practices are active learning strategies that benefit learning outcomes, increase student engagement, and support student retention. This study examines the retention and persistence impact of student philanthropy, an active learning approach that engages students with the community by incorporating a philanthropy component…

Certain student populations including youth formerly in foster care, first-generation college students, those with mental illness and substance abuse issues, and racial and ethnic minority students, face persistent challenges to their pursuit of college education, contributing to low graduation rates compared to their peers. This article details…

Objective: We estimated the correlations between the "pathways" chosen by community college students--in terms of desired credentials and fields of study, as well as other choices and outcomes along the paths--and the attainment of credentials with labor market value. We focused on the extent to which there were recorded changes in…

This study provides an overview and a snapshot of new student orientation (NSO) and new student e-orientation (NSEO) programs, with a focus on the content and feature analysis of the NSEOs. It offers an overview of currently available NSO programs of 100 randomly selected community colleges from a master list of nearly 900 community colleges in…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between school nurse presence and graduation rates, absenteeism, and American College Test (ACT) scores. A state-wide survey of all public high schools was undertaken (participation rate of 99.1%). Survey data obtained from individual high schools provided information on the employment…

High-impact educational practices (HIPs) have long been central to honors pedagogy. From undergraduate research to service learning, study abroad, internships, and writing-intensive courses, these practices shape the honors educational experience and influence retention successes in honors. These practices also inform the synergy between honors…

Today, many full-time students spend one, two, or more additional years completing a 2-year associate or 4-year bachelor degree. In order to reduce this time frame, many institutions are utilizing a 15 to Finish campaign to encourage full-time students to enroll in 15 credits each semester. The first purpose of this study was to examine if there…

This study connects library user surveys, a common library assessment technique, to institutional data to demonstrate the value an academic library brings to student learning and student outcomes. Using regression techniques, the study identifies multiple significant correlations, both positive and negative, between student use of the library and…

Catholic educational institutions play an important role in educating Latino high achieving students. Latino students attending Catholic high schools are more likely to graduate and transition to college immediately following high school. Few studies have examined the outcomes of Latino students who attend Catholic colleges and universities and…

For the United States to maintain national and global economic stability, colleges must graduate more students. Four-year completion rates have declined and less than one-third of full-time, degree-seeking students graduate in 4 years. Some researchers and policymakers have suggested "leading indicators" to track postsecondary…

Today, community colleges are challenged to maintain their historical identity of open access while increasing student success. This challenge is particularly salient in the context of performance-based funding models. These models create student achievements, which determine institutional levels of state funding. Therefore, these new student…

The low educational achievement of our poorest youth is fundamentally a political problem. Against a background of interconnected gaps in educational achievement, health and wealth, and political participation, this paper calls for a liberatory educational praxis that disrupts these reinforcing inequalities. This is a critical literacy grounded in…

Soldiers are returning from war to college. The number of veterans enrolled nationally is hard to find. Data from the National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics identify nearly 924,000 veterans as "total education program beneficiaries" for 2011. These statistics combine many categories, including dependents and survivors. The…

Keith Look, Shawnee High School principal, must steer his 82-year-old high school on the far west side of Louisville, Kentucky, through an aggressive, federally mandated effort to reverse a decades-long decline in student achievement that has given Shawnee the label of one of Kentucky's worst schools. He is one soldier in an army of principals…

When colleges turned to online learning, they opened the door for a number of students who might have only dreamed of pursuing a degree or credential. In 2006, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) surveyed prospective adult students without a college degree and discovered that they were three times more likely to enroll in…