Parental involvement is crucial to facilitating a child's high school success and enhancing their post-secondary opportunities. Unfortunately, the ability for Latina/o parents and guardians to engage in parental involvement is hindered by a general lack of familiarity with U.S. educational systems and post-secondary options. With these…

In 1998, Texas initiated a bold new statewide university admission policy aimed at increasing college access for traditionally underserved students in the state. House Bill 588 (known as the Texas Top 10 Percent Plan (TTPP)) guaranteed automatic admission to the college or university of their choice for all top performing students in Texas public…

The study examined the factors that affected minority students' choice to enroll at private four-year faith-based institutions in the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) in the United States. The study utilized the data from the College Board's Admitted Student Questionnaire PLUS (ASQ PLUS) survey. The final sample included 283…

Tracking student satisfaction and priorities is an important task for many college campuses, especially in challenging economic times when resources cannot afford to be wasted. When campuses understand the priorities of their students, resources can be used efficiently and effectively. Student satisfaction is a key component of student life and…

Of the many, many articles written on Harvard University's endowment woes, the author has yet to read one actually sympathetic with Harvard. Perhaps this reflects one's gleeful voyeurism when the high-and-mighty fall, or sense of justice that the reckless should pay for their recklessness, or belief that no university truly needs or deserves such…

The decision-making process of academically talented students when making the transition to college is complex. This study investigates the factors that contribute to the selectivity of the colleges by Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate students for application. A multilevel model was created to find which college-level and…

Educational studies as a discipline is now a feature in many British universities, but little research has been undertaken to explore what kinds of student choose the subject, how easily they access it or how they fare as undergraduate students. This article attempts to address this paucity of research by drawing on a selection of findings from a…

This is a dissertation in three essays. The first essay traces changes over time in three factors that drive students' sensitivity to changes in tuition prices and presents an argument that these factors have changed differently for access to higher education and choice among alternative institutions. The essay explores the application of a…

The Ruffalo Noel Levitz (RNL) Satisfaction-Priorities Surveys are the national standard for benchmarking student satisfaction in higher education. Since 1994, more than 2,900 colleges and universities have used the surveys to evaluate students' concerns that influence student success, college completion, student recruitment, strategic planning,…

Active involvement in college activities is linked to a host of student development outcomes, including personal growth, achievement and satisfaction. Yet, to date there has been too little attention to how social class shapes campus involvement. Through an analysis of survey data of students attending a single elite university and a national…

Trends among adolescents continue to be discouraging in terms of career and college readiness based on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) achievement reports and high school graduation rate data. In response, this article presents five goals and eight strategies we have engaged in during a seven-year research study focused on…

The White House will soon unveil a final version of its "college scorecard"--an online tool giving college-bound students and their families a hype-free snapshot of reliable information about any U.S. campus: real costs, graduation rates, student debt statistics, and earning potential of graduates. The college scorecard is a good idea…

This study examines the influential factors that contribute to pathway decisions of high achieving Latino students from South Texas. The theoretical frameworks of Hossler & Gallagher (1987) and Yosso (2005) are utilized as foundational pieces to denote various factors and networks of "capital" which impact the decision making process…

English learners (ELs) are facing unique issues in higher education that remain largely unexplored. This research focuses on college choice, enrollment, and graduation among high-achieving ELs who were eligible for automatic admission to any public higher education institution in Texas by having graduated in the top 10% of their high school class.…

Many factors affect an institution's ability to provide campus visitors a high-quality experience: traffic, parking deterrents, street people, navigation mazes, concrete facades, and political agendas, among others. These challenges can be particularly significant for large public, metro, or suburban institutions. Changes as simple as the…