In 2019, MDRC launched the Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) project to improve college completion rates for traditionally underserved students, such as students from low-income backgrounds and students of color, at community and broad-access colleges (those that have open or minimally selective admissions…

Indigenous language revitalization (ILR), or the act of reversing the language shift from English back to Native languages, is an essential task. Since their inception, tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) have worked to support and often lead language communities in this task. Since its beginning, Sitting Bull College (SBC), located on the…

Institutions of higher education must tailor the learning experience to meet the needs of all adult learners and increase student retention and lower dropout rates. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how post-secondary online learners described their engagement and instructional techniques they have experienced in an…

The growing prevalence of online higher education courses has attracted millions of students, many of whom fall outside the traditional student demographic. This investigative study aims to close the existing knowledge gap about the experiences and preferences of adult asynchronous learners. The study was conducted as a series of semi-structured…

This dissertation consists of three chapters that study individual investment in human capital and the incidence of economic shocks. I use administrative data to answer these questions, developing and applying structural methods to analyze individual choices in combination with a careful consideration of research design. Chapter 1 studies the…

This dissertation explores the stories of lived experience of mature women returners within the habitus of a single institution of higher education: The University of Washington Tacoma (UWT). This urban-serving university in Washington State was founded more than 30 years ago as an upper division branch campus designed to serve a place and…

Adult learners have more options for enrolling in postsecondary education than ever before, and they are able to use their learning style preference in deciding which program best meets their needs. For some of these students, those programs are fully online, and for others, there is minimal use of technology. As technology grows and become more…

Adult learners have different needs than traditional college-aged students. We present the first-year results of a targeted learning community for high-achieving, low-income engineering and engineering technology adult students. Students in this project received academic support and mentorship to prepare them for entering the engineering…

This paper probes whether a formal college education is linked to the quality of policing. Citizens desire a higher level of professionalism with ever-increasing demands placed on their police departments. Annual on-the-job training for police is common with proposed reform initiatives, however, the difference between police training and requiring…

Adult English language instruction is the fastest growing segment of U.S. adult basic education population. Supporting adult emergent multilingual students through English as a Second Language or English for Speakers of Other Languages classes, referred to here as ES(O)L, and developmental literacy programs presents a "wicked problem"…

Although the grit narrative--the idea that individual success is as much a product of passion and perseverance as it is a result of intelligence and talent--has captured the public's imagination, much of the empirical literature has focused almost exclusively on traditional-age college students attending more selective residential universities.…

California faces a shortfall of over two million degrees and certificates to meet employers' needs and promote economic mobility for its residents, but an impending wave of prospective students may satisfy this demand. This report describes the 5.1 million California adults ages 25 and older, representing nearly a fifth of the adult population,…

Peer Assisted Leaning (PAL) programmes have been shown to enhance learner confidence and have an overall positive effect on learner comprehension, particularly in subjects traditionally perceived as difficult. This research describes the findings of a three-cycle Action Research study into the perceived benefits of implementing such a programme…

Through a narrative approach, my research study focused on highlighting the experiences of Black and Latino men adult learners who are 25-years old or older as they describe their engagement in the transfer process from a California Community College to a California State University. Schlossberg's theory of adult transition and CRT served as…

In a youth-oriented culture, individuals in midlife who are facing 30-40 years of life after full-time employment are redefining retirement. As people are healthier, living longer, and desire to contribute to society in meaningful ways, college and university administrators have the opportunity to create innovative programs that align with…