Despite a growing number of autistic children completing high school and venturing into college and vocational settings, their rates of postsecondary attendance, graduation, and vocational success still lag behind those of their nonautistic counterparts. This study surveyed 162 autistic and nonautistic high school students about internal and…

The current study positions high school relationships and resources as assets to college-going Latinx students, examining the potential academic benefits of maintaining high school friendships and participating in support services offered from the high school context. The participants were 165 graduates (86.4% Latinx; 75.6% low-income) from a high…

Online learning environments are changing the landscape of education, with evidence supporting their efficacy. However, research that focuses entirely on online distance English-language programs is sparse, especially in regards to oral proficiency. The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy of an online distance-learning program in…

Underrepresented minority (URM) and economically disadvantaged (ED) high school students are less likely to graduate from high school or enroll in college. This institution began a structured mentorship program focusing on URM and ED students using a surgical simulation lab. The objective was to determine the effect of the mentorship program on…

The elicited imitation task (EIT), in which language learners listen to a series of spoken sentences and repeat each one verbatim, is a commonly used measure of language proficiency in second language acquisition research. The "TOEFL® Essentials"™ test includes an EIT as a holistic measure of speaking proficiency, referred to as the…

Efforts to understand disparities in educational outcomes between students designated as English Learners (ELs) and their monolingual English-speaking peers have focused on factors that limit ELs' access to college, including quality of high school preparation. Central to quality high school preparation are schools' curricular structures--the…

One of the stated goals of career and technical education (CTE) is to improve the labor market outcomes of participants. One population of students for which concentration CTE may be particularly beneficial is those who determine they will not pursue postsecondary education. By exploring how occupational concentration--defined as earning three or…

This paper studies the motivations of 130 women who returned to education after the genocide against Tutsi. After 1994, Rwandan mature women embraced university education in greater numbers due to marginalisation at work, inhabiting a subaltern position as a consequence of their gender and secondary level of education. One way of overcoming work…

In an era of heightened educational expectations, it can be difficult to discern why would-be first-generation college-going adolescents are less likely to enroll in college than non-first generation adolescents. This article draws from cultural sociology to interpret differences in the way that adolescents socially construct the transition into…

The contemporary education system in the United States is inadequate in the provision of services to assure that all students exit high school with the knowledge and skills necessary to enter postsecondary education or the workforce. This is particularly true for indigenous youth (Tanabe & Mobley, 2011). According to scholars, dual enrollment…

Reports abound about the challenges that first-generation, low-income students face on the path to higher education. Yet despite these barriers, millions of low-income, first-generation students persevere. What or who influences their motivation to "stay the course" to higher education? Using self-determination theory as a framework,…

An evaluation of the Princeton University Preparatory Program (PUPP), a college access program for low-income and high-achieving public high school students, yielded favorable findings regarding the perceptions of program alumni. PUPP Alumni Survey respondents (N =126) reported that PUPP had positively impacted their development of academic and…

Participating in religious services has many benefits for college and university students. In this study, I examined qualitative data provided by college students regarding what they value and gain by participating in religious services. While the 58 student participants resided on campus at the time of data collection, they attended off-campus…

Using a representative longitudinal survey of Texas high school seniors who graduated in 2002, we investigate how college postponement is associated with four-year college expectations and attendance--focusing both on the length of delay and the pathway to the postsecondary system. Like prior studies, we show that family background and student…

Students' loans in financing higher education in Tanzania have been subjected to many researches. However, less information is available on how the success of students' loans in financing higher education can be revealed. Therefore the purpose of this study is to examine the factors indicating the success of students' loans in financing higher…