In higher education, many students do not complete their studies within the term allotted. A Dutch university implemented an intervention aimed to reduce this form of academic procrastination. The intervention consisted of three measures: (1) requiring students to acquire all first-year credits within their first year in university, (2) reducing…

This paper measures the effects of collegiate class size on college retention and graduation. Class size is a perennial issue in research on primary and secondary schooling. Few researchers have focused on the causal impacts of collegiate class size, however. Whereas college students have greater choice of classes, selection problems and nonrandom…

Four-day school week schedules are being adopted with increasing frequency, particularly in rural areas. In this paper, we consider the academic implications of students in Oregon attending a four-day school week for the first time when they enter high school. We find 11th grade math achievement in 0.09 standard deviations lower among four-day…

Virtual universities have developed considerably over the past decade, particularly on the African continent. They provide a way to deal with the considerable need to educate a large young population, but the lack of physical space can be a drawback that prevents students from succeeding and increasing dropout compared to a more traditional…

Community colleges serve the most diverse student populations in higher education yet have some of the lowest levels of faculty diversity in higher education. Retaining community college student cohorts through transfer/graduation is a goal, yet attaining this goal has been elusive, particularly for underrepresented minority (URM) community…

This study examined graduation and persistence among social and behavioral science students at a regional comprehensive university. Hazard analyses identified predictors of student trajectories, times at which predictors were more or less impactful, and interactions between predictors such that particular risk factors were more detrimental for…

This paper evaluates whether student loans given to poor students at a large university in Peru are effective in reducing the time-to-degree. It uses a methodology that avoids the "selection problem" because the students voluntarily request a loan depending on their economic situation. The econometric results confirm the negative effect…

Section 29.182 of the Texas Education Code (TEC) makes provision for all students in the State of Texas to participate in Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. CTE programs incorporate competencies that lead to the attainment of academic and technical skills, industry recognized certificates, licenses, and credentials for employment as…

The authors examined the predictive nature of attentional biases and initial grade point average of ninth graders dropping out of high school. Attentional biases are cognitive shifts in focus that are linked in both time and context toward stimuli perceived by an individual as threatening. Data were collected from 68 high school freshmen (45.6%…

Applied science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) coursetaking is becoming more commonplace in traditional high school settings to help students reinforce their learning in academic STEM courses. Throughout U.S. educational history, vocational education has been a consistent focus for schools to keep students on the school-to-career…

National data from Monitoring the Future were used to examine patterns and predictors of college attendance. Samples of American 12th-grade students from 1977 to 2003 were followed for 7 years (modal ages 18-25; N = 10,020). College attendance and graduation patterns varied considerably over historical time and based on family background.…

Patterns of course credit attainment for 2009-2010 Austin Independent School District (AISD) high school students are discussed. Among those most likely not to be on track to graduate in 4 years were English language learners and students in special education.

High school graduation rates nationally have declined in recent years, despite public and private efforts. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether practice of the Quiet Time/Transcendental Meditation® program at a medium-size urban school results in higher school graduation rates compared to students who do not receive training…

Background/Context: Efforts to improve student achievement should increase graduation rates. However, work investigating the effects of student-level accountability has consistently demonstrated that increases in the standards for high school graduation are correlated with increases in dropout rates. The most favored explanation for this finding…

Currently, there are approximately 1.3 million annual high school dropouts who potentially might lose $355 billion of income over their lifetimes. Effectively addressing retention and dropout issues has far-reaching societal implications. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between ninth-grade retention and on-time graduation. For the…