For years, the impending enrollment cliff has been a regular topic amongst higher education officials. With this event slated to hit undergraduate programs by 2025, it is anticipated that graduate schools will begin feeling the impact by 2029. By examining factors influencing graduate student college choice, enrollment managers can identify ways…

Summer melt refers to applicants who showed intentions of starting college, but ultimately did not attend. The purpose of this program evaluation was to evaluate a text messaging intervention offered to community college applicants aimed at reducing summer melt of all students, but particularly first-generation students. Applicants often face…

Using a mixed-methods approach, this research examines admissions practices and recruitment strategies within eight graduate-level, allied health sciences programs. The results highlight the characteristics of submitted, accepted, and matriculated students, and identifies, by program, if the recruitment strategies (e.g., marketing campaign…

The purpose of this dissertation study was twofold. First, this research study examined the role of noncognitive factors on degree completion, academic achievement, and persistence. Second, this research study examined the utility of the Personal Potential Index (PPI) as an avenue to reliably assess noncognitive factors of graduate students that…

Nationwide, there has been a decline in the number of applicants to PharmD programs. Additionally, there is a lack of diversity in the healthcare workforce that leads to inequitable healthcare for diverse populations of patients. As a result, various recruitment tactics, including pipeline programs, have been used to develop a larger, more diverse…

Purpose: There is a documented disparity in the number of Latino physicians in the U.S., especially in states with a large Latino population like California. In this study, the researcher explores the lived experiences of qualified, motivated Latino students enrolled at medical schools in California to better understand their perceptions of…

This dissertation consists of three chapters covering applications within Matching Theory. In the first chapter, we study the decentralized college admissions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), where students submit their applications to each college separately, and colleges use a ranking based on weighted centralized test scores. Unlike the…

Sociologists of education have a longstanding interest in studying the relationship between schooling and inequality in society. While we know education matters for who gets ahead, we still know relatively less about the processes and mechanisms behind this relationship. In my dissertation, I focus on higher education as a key site where…

Many institutions have turned to individualized holistic review to make admissions decisions, which is meant to take a comprehensive view of the quantitative and qualitative elements that comprise a single application. Prior research shows holistic review lacks a common definition and the gap between theory and practice has not been thoroughly…

This study examined the lived experiences of premedical advisors employed in four-year institutions of higher education in the northeastern U.S. advising premedical students about the gap year options between undergraduate education and medical school. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews of 17 premedical advisors and analyzed…

For many open-enrolled higher education institutions, including community colleges, enrollment is dropping each semester creating significant financial challenges. While much research literature focuses on four-year colleges, little is known about the students who seek to enroll at community colleges. What is known is often evaluated using college…

This dissertation presents evidence about implementing a free college policy on higher education's demand and supply. This analysis includes descriptive evidence about the impact of the policy on students and programs' behavior. It also develops and estimates a demand and supply model of higher education that provides a framework to analyze the…

This research study used a qualitative methodology to understand the experiences of Latinx students in a community college orientation program. The goal was to see the orientation through the eyes of the students and understand their perceptions of how the college's orientation might be improved in ways that help them feel welcome and validated in…

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) conducts annual demographic data collection for all medical school applicants and matriculants, revealing a concerning trend of underrepresentation of minority groups. Among these, the data from 2018 to 2023 showed a low underrepresentation of Latine women, with only a 3% representation among…

This dissertation consists of three chapters that examine topics in the economics of education. Chapter 1 tests the impact of holding student loan debt on borrowers' post-schooling decisions, with a focus on how it changes the way they evaluate risks when choosing between jobs. Chapter 2 analyzes the impact of an expansion of public-school choice…