Hispanic college enrollment in the U.S. will surpass 4.4 million students by 2025, far exceeding the growth rate of any other racial or ethnic group. Hence, the number of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) identified by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) increased to nearly 570 in 2020 and is likely to accelerate…

Suicide is the tenth ranking cause of death in the United States (CDC, 2015); however, alarmingly, suicide is the second leading cause of death in the fifteen to twenty-four age group (CDC, 2015). Drum et al. (2009) surveyed undergraduate students (n = 15,010) from seventy U.S. colleges and universities. The researchers found that in one year, 6%…

Academic advising in higher education has been affected by many factors since its development at Harvard College in 1636 (Brubacher & Rudy, 1997). Currently in higher education, 33% of first year students do not return for their second year of academic work ("U.S. News and World Report," 2015); only 60% of students graduate college…

Summer bridge programs (SBPs) are a popular programmatic intervention of colleges and universities to assist students with the transition from high school to college and provide students with the academic and social tools they need to be successful. Despite their popularity, a survey of relevant literature indicated that bridge programs are not…

As the Global War on Terror began and developed from 2001 to present, there has been a continued persistence of multiple deployments for many service members, which has eventually led to greater cohorts of service members leaving the military, and a continued increase of veterans enrolling in colleges and universities to use their military related…

In the current environment for higher education, it has become critical for all of the departments and colleges within a university to become more aware of their place in the overall mission of the university. This is especially true of the academic library, which had relied upon a reputation as the "heart" of an academic institution for…

Retention of students is a problem faced by institutions of higher education around the world. Higher education institutions are required to report retention data to government agencies and they depend on tuition funding more than ever before. Prior research has identified many characteristics that when present, increase the likelihood of early…

It has been well-establishing in the field of educational research that traditional educational methods such as passive lectures and labs where students follow pre-designed procedures to verify information already told to them are not effective for promoting meaningful and lasting conceptual understanding. Alongside this knowledge have come a…

This mixed methods study explored the development of technological, pedagogical, content knowledge (TPACK) of Chinese teachers who attended the STARTALK Chinese Teacher Institute, a 10-day residential summer professional development program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A sequential explanatory design was adopted in which quantitative and…

To meet the needs of complex and/or underserved patient populations, health care professionals must possess diverse backgrounds, qualities, and skill sets. Holistic review has been used to diversify student admissions through examination of non-cognitive attributes of health care applicants. The objective of this study was to develop a novel…

The purpose of this study was to explore the academic performance of entering college students in their first enrolled college English course by comparing students who entered with prior college English coursework earned through Dual Enrollment, with prior college English coursework earned through another accelerated mechanism such as AP or IB,…

From a theoretical standpoint, pluralistic orientation incorporates higher levels of critical thinking that empower students to engage collaboratively, interact cross-culturally, and develop a higher regard for others' perspectives, beliefs, and identities. Though many of these attributes may develop naturally over time through life experiences,…

No standard measure for college and career readiness currently exists but a common goal for college readiness could potentially improve the rate of college completion. Towards the development of a common goal for college readiness, it should be noted that the workplace and colleges increasingly desire the skills of intercultural competence (ICC).…

Institutions of higher education are facing increased pressure to do more with less while continuing to provide a high-quality education. Faculty are asked to teach more and do more with decreased resources and without additional compensation. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on institutions of higher education resulting in…

This dissertation addresses three separate questions in human capital and development economics. In the first chapter, I study how college admission concerns drive students' field choices in a field-specific college admission system. To study this question, I leverage a college admission policy reform in Ethiopia that sharply increased the…