It is generally agreed upon that in order to be an effective, contributing member of society one must work. The current axiom in education today revolves around preparing students to be college and career ready, with the ultimate goal of preparing students for the workforce but very little research has gone in to identifying the most effective way…

The purpose of the dissertation is to gain insight into how higher education policies can influence institutional performance in Latino postsecondary degree completion; specifically, through an examination of the college readiness efforts of two Hispanic-Serving Institutions in Texas. Over half of all Latinos in postsecondary education in the…

Concurrent enrollment--defined as high school students enrolling in college coursework--is increasingly being used as strategy to improve the college readiness levels of underrepresented students and to reduce disparities in college-going rates. States have developed policy and analyzed data to evaluate the practice of concurrent enrollment. This…

Research shows that students who take a certain core curriculum are better prepared for college than those students who do not; however, data indicate that taking core courses is not enough: Teachers must assign greater rigor in all courses they teach, especially courses needed for college (Schmeiser, 2007). As early as 1983 the National…

The 2005 Summit on High Schools led to redesigning schools and promoting 21st Century Skills. Consequently, this study assesses the implementation of supplemental online courses, offered through the Virtual High School (VHS), at one suburban New Jersey public high school. The following questions guided this research project: (1) How do the VHS…

This research studied the role of mathematics as a roadblock to college completion for community college-bound students in California. Using longitudinal quantitative analysis, I observed the educational pipeline between high school and community college and analyzed how different high school mathematics histories predicted readiness, or…

Although much national effort has been made to align the K-12 and higher education systems, the educational pipeline is still leaky at every stage. Furthermore, one of the on-going issues in the educational system is the lack of readiness of high school graduates for post-secondary education, especially for low income and minority students. As a…

This mixed-method study identifies cyber high school graduates' perceptions of the effect of a cyber high school education on successful transition to a traditional university. The study examined students' perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages their cyber education experience contributed to their academic and social transition to…

Student success in attaining college acceptance, gaining scholarship(s), and having postsecondary education or workforce choice is closely tied to achievement on the most widely used and accepted college entrance examination, the "ACT". Researchers have studied various interventions designed to impact "ACT" scores, but one…

Undocumented immigrant postsecondary students face myriad challenges while pursuing a college education. These overwhelmingly first-generation, low-income students lose their guarantee to a public education ensured by the 1982 "Plyler v. Doe" decision when they complete secondary school. They are foreclosed from traditional financial…

The overarching goal for American education under President Barack Obama has been to increase college enrollment and completion rates. The pressure to achieve this goal has been keenly felt in the postsecondary community, especially as federal and state funding have become increasingly tied to achieving higher college completion rates. Yet the…

Educational and political leaders have expressed concern about racial and ethnic disparities in students' readiness for postsecondary study and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). A lack of preparedness of STEM teachers in high-need urban districts, which serve predominantly low-income minority students, is often…

The education of under-prepared college students is a topic that interested and motivated this researcher to conduct a study on learning communities and measuring change in writing apprehension and locus of control of developmental students at a community college. Higher education is generally viewed as a place for the intellectually elite.…

This study attempted to observe if there was a statistical significant relationship between perceptions of educational change and student achievement. The independent variables that represented perceptions of educational change included: community pressure for change, faculty anxiety to change, faculty openness to change, principal anxiety to…

Nursing student attrition in community colleges negatively affects students, faculty, colleges, and the nursing profession. The purpose of this quantitative correlational retrospective research study was to examine the possible relationships between each of the independent variables of academic preparedness (as measured by NET mathematics and…