Purpose: What do principals look for when hiring teachers? The purpose of this paper is to extend the knowledge concerning what aspects of teacher quality are in demand among the individuals who administer schools and make hiring decisions. Design/methodology/approach: Rather than employing interviews or surveys, the authors utilized a conjoint…

Research on college choice decisions of high school students has increased over the past forty years but has generally centered on demographic characteristics such as race, gender, or socio-economic status of students. There has been little research on the influences on the college choice decisions of high academically achieving students from…

Existing research finds minimal gains from attending elite US secondary schools. This paper estimates the causal effect of attending a selective public boarding school, an institutional model increasingly used by states to serve academically gifted students. Regression discontinuity estimates using multiple admissions thresholds show math score…

This paper investigates community college transfer success by exploring the relationship between individual and institutional-level characteristics at students' two- and four-year institutions. Using statewide administrative data from North Carolina, this study employs a cross-classified multilevel model to investigate the impact that a student's…

The goal of equal educational opportunity remains unrealized at most of America's colleges. The children of wealth and privilege fill nearly all the seats at these institutions, while the children of poverty are almost completely absent. Far too often, a young person's educational path is determined not by intellect, but by parental income. That a…

In this study, the author analyzed panel data on elite university students to test prominent explanations for how college attendance affects religious identities and behaviors. Results from random-effects logistic regression showed that in-college religiosity was primarily a function of pre-college religious background. While the secularization…

Developed in response to concerns that too few students were enrolling and succeeding in postsecondary education, early college high schools are small schools that blur the line between high school and college. This article presents results from a longitudinal experimental study comparing outcomes for students accepted to an early college through…

Developed in response to concerns that too few students were enrolling and succeeding in postsecondary education, early college high schools are small schools that blur the line between high school and college. This article presents results from a longitudinal experimental study comparing outcomes for students accepted to an early college through…

The open access mission is central to the community college role and mission in higher education. Although initially implemented by four-year colleges and universities, adoption of formal enrollment management initiatives in community colleges is on the increase. Admission, matriculation, retention, and persistence are affected by enrollment…

May 1970 became a pivotal moment in higher education. In that month, the backlash over two events, the announcement of the American invasion of Cambodia and the National Guard killing four Kent State University students protesting that military offensive, triggered the largest student protest in history. Across the nation, hundreds of thousands of…

We study the impact of a public school choice lottery in Charlotte-Mecklenburg (CMS) on postsecondary attainment. We match CMS administrative records to the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), a nationwide database of college enrollment. Among applicants with low-quality neighborhood schools, lottery winners are more likely than lottery losers…

Today a college degree is considered the ticket to a good job and the gateway to economic advancement. A student's chances of gaining admission to college, however, are often based more on parental wealth than the student's achievements. At the nation's most selective colleges, three percent of incoming freshmen come from families in the bottom…

Relations between early child care and adolescent functioning at the end of high school (EOHS; M age = 18.3 years) were examined in a prospective longitudinal study of 1,214 children. Controlling for extensive measures of family background, early child care was associated with academic standing and behavioral adjustment at the EOHS. More…

North Carolina is a state with a rich higher education history, which matches the diversity and number of higher education institutions that can be found there. The significant investment of both tax dollars and public support for higher education in North Carolina has created a unique environment in which public policy significantly impacts both…

Background: Early college high schools, small schools that blur the line between high school and college, have been obtaining very strong results. This paper uses the frame of student engagement to posit an explanation for the success of these schools. Purpose: This paper examines the impact of early college high schools on indicators and…