The college enrollment and graduation rates of Black and Latino males continues to be a persistent higher education problem. Furthermore, institutions of higher education fail the interests and educational advancement of Black and Latino men by many measures such as retention and college completion rates. More specifically, institutionalized…

China has witnessed unprecedented higher education expansion since the 1990s. The gross higher education enrollment rate--the percentage of student population of all ages enrolled in the higher education institutions relative to the total 18-22 population--has increased from 9.8% in 1998 to more than 40% in 2016. As the overall postsecondary…

Black males account for 4.3% of the total enrollment at four-year postsecondary institutions in the United States. The percentage of Black men who are enrolled in college is nearly the same as it was in 1976 (Harper, 2006a; Palmer & Strayhorn, 2008; Strayhorn, 2008a, 2010). With this low exponential growth of Black males attending institutions…

The landscape of American higher education is becoming more competitive each year. Discussions about equity and increasing access to underrepresented student groups grows each year, particularly regarding the role of standardized testing. Some research has shown the SAT and ACT exams, the two primary college entrance exams used in the United…

The Powered by Publics (PxP) initiative has been an ambitious undertaking from the beginning, aiming to produce hundreds of thousands more undergraduate degrees and halving equity gaps for low-income, minoritized, and first-generation students by 2025. APLU has collected student performance data from the 127 participating institutions over the…

Using the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, we investigated school counselors' caseloads, how they spent their time, and the impact of those factors on schools' academic outcomes. Results showed that approximately 85% of the school counselors had a caseload of 455 or fewer students, with roughly one quarter reporting caseloads equal to or…

Faculty diversity plays a key role in college student completion and can have a major impact on students' sense of belonging, retention rates, and persistence. This report examines faculty diversity relative to student diversity, as well as hiring equity, tenure equity, and changes in faculty representation over time for Black and Latino faculty…

Recent data from Chicago Public Schools (CPS) show that active English Learners were less likely to graduate from high school (77% did so in 2023) than their peers (85%) and less likely to enroll in college (56% of 2022 English Learners high school graduates enrolled in college compared to 66 percent of their non-English Learners high school…

This report summarizes the academic and post-secondary outcomes for student athletes and non-athletes in the 2017-2018 school year.

This dissertation includes three chapters focusing on policies directly related to improving college access and success. The first chapter focuses on lifetime eligibility of federal and state financial aid policies. The Pell Grant plays a critical role in helping students across the US to afford undergraduate education. In spite of its importance…

This dissertation joins a conversation in the special education arena about the academic and vocational agenda for special education high school students. It explores the influence of enrollment in Career Technical Education (CTE) courses on the achievement of high school special education (SPED) students. The purpose of this study was to compare…

In this dissertation, I investigate three barriers that students in China face when pursuing higher education: the unequal distribution of college enrollment quotas, the complexity of the college application process and financial constraints. These barriers exist worldwide, but the unique characteristics of the Chinese higher education system make…

Since 1998, the Iowa Department of Education's Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation (division) has compiled and published "The Annual Condition of Iowa's Community Colleges," commonly known as the "Condition Report." The intent of this report is to provide clear, objective data about Iowa's community…

This report provides a summary of highlights of the 15th annual AISD High School Exit Survey administered online to seniors in every AISD high school during May 2017.

This study investigated the impact of family/school capital on the academic development of African American and Hispanic students by examining four educational outcomes (math/reading achievement at the tenth grade, high school graduation, post-secondary enrollment and post-secondary degree attainment) from the tenth grade through their…