Early college high schools (ECHS) in North Carolina are small public schools of choice on college campuses that seek to promote attaining postsecondary credits in high school, college readiness, and postsecondary enrollment for underrepresented groups. Evidence from randomized control trial (RCT) has shown positive effects of the ECHS model on…

Early college high schools (ECHSs) in North Carolina are small public schools of choice on college campuses that seek to promote attaining postsecondary credits in high school, college readiness, and postsecondary enrollment for underrepresented groups. Evidence from randomized control trials (RCTs) has shown positive effects of the ECHS model on…

Dual enrollment is an early college opportunity for high school students who are in an eligible high school class with a qualified high school instructor. Research has shown that participation in an early college program like dual enrollment increases college persistence and retention rates post high school. However, students from underrepresented…

This study focuses on the disparities between the educational aspirations and expectations of high school students in the U.S., and explores why students do not expect to earn a bachelor's degree despite their aspirations. Using a national dataset and logistic/multinomial logistic regression analyses, the study identified the factors associated…

Grade 7 students are not college-ready because they do not have skills for applying, accessing, or identifying their college needs. Students do not know the opportunities and resources available to help gain acceptance into college and feel they cannot apply for college due to financial, academic, career, or personal reasons. Districts fall short…

Past work and college-access programs often treat college knowledge as discrete pieces of information and focus on the amount of available college information. I use ethnographic and multiwave interview data to compare college-aspiring working- and middle-class black 9th and 11th graders across almost two years in high school along with their…

Most college readiness reforms in high school focus on academic preparation for college, while underprepared students who do not intend to enroll in college are often left underserved. Using a unique source of data from essays written by students, we examine the role that high schools play in supporting students who test below college-ready in…

Helping students transition from high school to college typically involves creating online transition programs in high school, which could lead to higher retention rates in college. The course developers that create online transition programs for high school-aged students understand that online learning methods are an excellent way to reach more…

This case study examines how relationships with staff in a GEAR-UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) pre-college program positively influenced the college-going aspirations of Black ninth-grade students. Critical Race Theory and Possible Selves provide an intersecting analytical framework for understanding the…

This study considers whether participation in several out-of-class high school experiences increased the odds that a student would aspire to earn a bachelor's degree, whether these relationships were moderated by the student's race/ethnicity or socioeconomic status, and whether these experiences, considered together, had a cumulative influence on…

Recent research based on the Dweck's mindset theory has shown that persons with a growth mindset who believe traits such as intelligence are malleable may put forth more effort and have greater academic success than those with a fixed mindset. However, little research has been conducted on mindsets of college students, many of whom enter…

Research shows that students who take advanced mathematics courses perform better on measures of college readiness than students who take less rigorous courses. However, no clear effect has been shown on requiring all students to take more advanced courses. This study examined whether increases in the number and level of mathematics courses…

Widening participation in England has been framed around two primary needs; raising attainment and raising aspiration. Whilst aspiration is complex, policy definitions often frame it in narrow economic terms and see access to higher education as primarily about developing a workforce, the underlying logic being that to improve social mobility that…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between motivation in high school and postsecondary enrollment among 10th-grade students whose parents did not go to college. Specifically, this study (1) identified distinct groups of students' self-reported reasons for attending schools among 10th graders, (2) examined whether these…

The main objective of this study is to identify and discuss the motivational factors that significantly influence learners' academic success in an Australian enabling education setting. The logistic regression technique has been employed to identify the motivational factors using data collected through online surveys with 331 learners enrolled in…