Tuition discounting has become a common strategy used in higher education to generate enrollment; however, little academic study has been done on its impact on the overall financial condition of higher education institutions. Those studies that have been completed regarding tuition discounting have primarily analyzed the use of tuition discounting…

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative case study is to describe the formation of a graduate enrollment evaluation system (GEES) to capture and explore the perceptions of key stakeholders to critically examine the barriers and benefits of a PhD nursing program at a large, public designated high research institution. As the research suggest,…

This study examines college choice decisions of students admitted to the University of California (UC) and the relationship between these choices and degree attainment. It does so using a dataset that combines UC administrative data with National Student Clearinghouse data on enrollment and degree attainment. It first discusses how academic and…

Tuition discounting has been a long-standing practice among colleges and universities. Its roots can be traced to the beginnings of the 1970s, and its use has continued to increase and expand in the decades following. However, despite its widespread use, the research is inconclusive whether tuition discounting has been an effective strategy to…

Sexual violence on college campuses is a salient threat to the health and well-being of students in higher education. Title IX legislation was developed to address and help reduce sex-based discrimination, including incidences of sexual violence, on college campuses. However, existing data suggests that a relatively small number of campus…

This dissertation contains three chapters, each investigating a question in American economic history. The first chapter is co-authored with Ran Abramitzky, Santiago Perez, and Joseph Price. In this work, we conduct a large-scale digitization of historical college registers, encompassing 2.7 million students at 65 elite US universities. We use…

United States historians have recorded the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the major events of 2020. The Spring 2020 session was an unprecedented time for institutions of higher education. The traditional model of higher education was supplanted by digital online modality for delivery of curriculum, not only in order to finish the Spring 2020…

As noted in the national publication regarding the Value of HBCUs (Cotton, 2018), "Historically black colleges and universities have made a lasting global imprint on virtually every facet of culture and society. HBCU alumni have ascended to leadership positions in government, education, business and industry, science and technology, medicine,…

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) continue to contribute irrefutable value to higher education. The individuals leading HBCUs for over 180 years have endured many obstacles and setbacks. However, the men and women who assume the role of president commit to continuing the original missions of these institutions. Over the past two…

The purpose of the non-experimental quantitative research study was to identify if there is a significant difference between the types of budget model an institution utilizes, institutional size, and student enrollment, retention, and graduation rates. This study was to identify if there is significant difference between institutional size and the…

This research project is a study comparing for-profit schools and traditional universities related to student persistence, graduation rate, and job placement. The results based on a sample size of 92 students indicate that there is no significant difference between persistence, graduation rates and successful job placement at either school. There…

While accountability in higher education has been a topic of debate for decades, in recent years the discussions have shifted to emphasize efficiency and economic measures of success. A prominent example of this accountability movement is the increase in popularity of performance funding policies. These policies connect specific outcomes on state…

This thesis examines two uncommon topics in the economic literature regarding college access and completion: the role of college proximity in recent high school graduates' enrollment decisions, and how structural changes to the student experience at a postsecondary institution can affect college completion. The first chapter is a review of the…

Community colleges enrolled 37 percent of students attending Title IV-eligible, degree-granting institutions in 2000, but by 2012, this had dropped to 33 percent (National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 2013). At least some of this decline is hypothesized to be due to the rise of for-profit institutions, which enrolled approximately 9…

The U.S. public research university performance narrative is dominated by "access, affordability, and accountability" rhetoric (National Science Foundation, 2012), while public policy advocacy is weakened (Basken, 2012), and presidents become increasingly transitory (Monks, 2012). The purpose of this study was to explore if presidential…