Many students who enter college do not finish, reflecting numerous academic, financial, and social barriers to postsecondary completion. Success Boston Coaching (SBC) provides students in the Greater Boston area with coaching during their first 2 years of college to help them overcome barriers to postsecondary completion and connect them to…

The study investigates a tension between affirmative action scholars who hypothesize that affirmative action bans would increase underrepresented minority students' STEM college completions and scholars who have empirically estimated declines. It also questions results that that find no existence of a STEM penalty (compared to non-STEM) caused by…

Recent high dropout and low graduation rates in the South African higher education institutions as well as government funding cuts and the economic uncertainty due to COVID-19 pandemic have heightened the urgency for the higher education sector to improve its productivity. However, empirical evidence on the productivity growth of the sector…

Despite a burgeoning literature on first-generation college student success, little is known about how the presence of first-generation or continuing-generation peers may facilitate desired outcomes among first-generation students. Moreover, two theoretical traditions lead to contrasting predictions about the potential impact of the representation…

This study uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to examine the effect of childhood trauma experiences on college graduation rates. A longitudinal mediation path analysis with a binary logistic regression is performed using trauma as a mediator between race, gender, first-generation status and college completion. The…

This paper examines the propensity of African American students to graduate from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Using IPEDS data from 2004 to 2016, we take care in developing a control group of institutions from which to compare HBCU success. Results suggest that despite accepting more students who are at risk of not…

The current study examined the relationship between faculty gender diversity (GD) and college and university level outcomes and the role that diversity climate (DC) plays in these relationships in a sample of N = 282 4-year, public and private, non-profit, degree granting institutions in the U.S. Based on social categorization and signaling…

Do older community college students build momentum toward graduation differently than their younger peers? One-third of students in community colleges are 25 years of age or older, and these students tend to have lower rates of graduation than their younger peers. Yet, we know little about how the factors that influence college graduation differ…

Recent research suggests that dual enrollment programs are a useful recruiting tool for colleges and universities as many high school students remain at their dual enrollment institution after high school graduation. Students staying enrolled at their dual enrollment institution for college may be beneficial for institutions, but is it beneficial…

Evidence-based and student-centered instructional methods hold the promise of transforming undergraduate STEM education and simultaneously solving the dual challenge of STEM workforce needs and inequities within STEM. The Learning Assistant (LA) Model was created to reform curriculum, recruit teachers, and inform discipline-based education…

A third of the 2- and 4-year undergraduates beginning college in 2011-2012 changed their major in the first 3 years of enrollment. Yet, few studies have examined the effects of major switching on student outcomes, particularly in community colleges. Major switching can delay or impede college completion through excess credit accumulation, or it…

Low completion rates of math courses pose a major challenge for community college students' educational progress and outcomes. Contextualized instruction has been identified as a promising approach to removing some of the longstanding barriers within math teaching and learning. Still, the empirical base on this topic remains small, with…