The research on students who do not graduate from high school has traditionally focused on students who drop out before their expected graduation date. This ignores the experiences of "persisters" or "persisting students"--those who remain enrolled in high school on or beyond their expected graduation date, but have yet to earn…

For students pursuing a postsecondary education, where they go is as important as whether they go. National College Attainment Network ("NCAN") member programs and college access programs more broadly often inform students about their likelihood of completing a degree at their prospective postsecondary destinations as part of the…

The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative study was to evaluate the relationships between completion of high school dual enrollment courses and subsequent success of first-time, full-time community college students as measured by completion of an associate degree and time to completion of the degree. In addition to comparing dual and…

Although persisters now represent the largest group of non-graduating high school students, they have received little attention in the research literature, leaving unanswered the question of how persisters differ from dropouts in terms of demographic characteristics, academic preparation, and key life outcomes. Using statewide…

Developmental systems theory and life span development describe the role of individual--context interactions in individual development but have not directly addressed how individuals pursue achievement goals in institutional contexts. We developed a theory informed by these perspectives that explains how institutional contexts affect emerging…

Four-day school week schedules are being adopted with increasing frequency, particularly in rural areas. In this paper, we consider the academic implications of students in Oregon attending a four-day school week for the first time when they enter high school. We find 11th grade math achievement in 0.09 standard deviations lower among four-day…

Historically, college students who require remediation in mathematics have been placed into developmental mathematics courses. Accurate placement is important for student success; inaccurate placement in a low-level course could lengthen a students' time to degree completion. Placement policies have tended to focus on a high-stakes placement test,…

One explanation for negative or null findings in prior research on postsecondary remediation is that college may be too late to address issues of academic underpreparedness. This study evaluates the impact on student outcomes when college math remediation is offered in the senior year of high school. The Seamless Alignment and Integrated Learning…

The Tuition Opportunity Program for Students (subsequently renamed the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, also known as TOPS), Louisiana's merit-based student aid program, was created via Act 1375 of the 1997 Regular Legislative Session. The first freshman class to receive TOPS awards entered postsecondary education in the fall of 1998. Act…

The term dual, or concurrent, enrollment refers to the broad array of programs available to high school students that allow them to take college-level courses for credit. Dual enrollment creates multiple pathways to college by enabling high school students to take: (1) selected academic courses on college campuses; (2) college-led academic courses…

Objectives/Research Question: This study aims to explore who transfers between 2-year colleges (lateral transfer students) and how these students fare in terms of degree attainment. More specifically, this research explores two research questions: (1) What are the predictors of lateral transfer? (2) Is lateral transfer associated with degree…

Empirical evidence unambiguously asserts that a college education provides robust benefits to both individuals and societies. However, disparities in college enrollment and completion persist and limit opportunities for marginalized students to enjoy the advantages a college education affords, impeding progress toward equitable outcomes for all.…

In this study, we identified factors influencing completion rates (graduation) of undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We used hierarchical, logistic, and linear regression models to analyze the data and found significant predictor variable interactions across various underrepresented versus…

Compared with admissions test scores, why are high school grades better at predicting college graduation? We argue that success in college requires not only cognitive ability but also self-regulatory competencies that are better indexed by high school grades. In a national sample of 47,303 students who applied to college for the 2009/2010 academic…

This exploratory, descriptive study examined trends associated with Kalamazoo Promise (KPromise) student stop out, reenrollment, and persistence to a credential upon reenrollment. For the 2006-2017 cohorts, 78% were retained from first to second year. Inferential models suggested that first-year stop out was mainly correlated to students' high…