Objective: Examine the proportion of students with rapid firearm access and associations with recent alcohol and marijuana use. Participants: Cross-sectional data from college freshmen (n = 183) in 2020 who participated in the "Mason: Health Starts Here" study. Methods: Using logistic regression, associations were examined between past…

Objective: Food insecurity is a growing concern to the health and wellbeing of college students. This study aims to examine the lived experiences of students at-risk of food insecurity and associated challenges in a public urban campus. Participants: The study recruited 21 college students at risk of food insecurity using purposive sampling.…

Getting and keeping accreditation is critical for almost all colleges in the United States. Accreditation is third-party validation that a college meets minimum standards. Not only is institutional accreditation required for participation in federal student loan programs, but without accreditation, it is hard (if not impossible) to be authorized…

This paper outlines how four community colleges, and a large public university, collaborated to support over 80 paraprofessionals who sought to finish their bachelor's degree and earn licensure. Funding from a statewide "Grow Your Own" initiative allowed the teacher educators at the community colleges and university to put in place…

Two-year public colleges educate more than 50% of all U.S. undergraduates, yet graduation rates (29%) fall far below their 4-year counterparts (63%). It is critical for students of 2-year public institutions that their faculty have the appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) to effectively guide students toward graduation. This study…

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered unprecedented disruptions in higher education, forcing swift changes to core operations, particularly within divisions of student affairs. A review of the literature reveals COVID-19 presented many unique challenges for students and student affairs professionals, including disruptions in traditional…

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenology study was to understand the experiences of non-traditional undergraduate students taking online courses at a public or a private university in Virginia. The self-determination theory, which guided this study, explained the motivated behaviors of intrinsic and extrinsic needs that affect the…

Nearly half of students who enter college do not graduate. The majority of efforts to increase college completion have focused on supporting students before or soon after they enter college, yet many students drop out after making significant progress towards their degree. In this paper, we report results from a multi-year, large-scale…

A commonly used metric for measuring college costs, drawn from data in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), is expenditure per full-time equivalent (FTE) student. This article discusses an error in this per FTE calculation when using IPEDS data, especially with regard to community colleges. The problem is that expenditures…

The Pell Grant is the foundational need-based student aid program in the United States, providing students of lower socio-economic status a pathway to afford college costs and educational expenses. Currently, over one-third of all U.S. undergraduate students receive Pell. This paper examines federal Pell assistance and institutional costs for…

The Appropriation Act directs the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) to submit an annual report to the Governor and the chairs of the House Appropriations and Senate Finance and Appropriations Committees documenting the annual change in total charges for tuition and fees approved by the boards of visitors at Virginia public…

The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) has a codified responsibility to develop the Commonwealth's state-level strategic plan for higher education and to review The Plan every six years to ensure its relevance in addressing critical issues. In 2019, to fulfill a Code requirement and more important, to identify the main near-…