High school graduation has long been recognized as an important turning point to young adulthood, opening up the doors for future vocational and economic activities. In Washington State, students with disabilities still drop out at rates that are significantly higher than their peers, hampering their ability to achieve this graduation milestone.…

Dating back to 1998, researchers established that adults learn differently than younger, recent high school graduates. Even with decades of research on the topic, approximately 39 million American adults have attended college but left school without obtaining a degree. The research questions addressed the purpose of this qualitative exploratory…

Students with high incidence disabilities are dropping out of high school at alarming rates. Compared with other demographic groups, students with disabilities have the lowest graduation rates of any group in the nation. The substandard graduation rates have remained stagnant for two decades, indicating that programmatic attempts to address the…

There have been several studies regarding the factors as to why students drop out of high school in both urban and rural areas. However, there have been few studies, which have examined why female students in rural areas have left high school before graduating. From 2010-2014, there had been a 29% increase in the dropout rate among female…

Special education students' graduation rate in high school is 61%, compared to regular high school students at 80%, as noted in a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to identify and describe strategies that reduce the dropout rate of overaged special education students. The…

Community colleges enroll nearly half of the students in public undergraduate programs and a disproportionate number of first-generation, low-income, underprepared, and minority students. The new national completion agenda initiated by President Barack Obama had brought both visibility and pressure to community colleges, which had completion rates…

This study used non-experimental survey research to gather data on the kinds of dropout prevention programs in place in West Virginia high schools in 2014-15 and to evaluate their effectiveness based on possible relationships between principals' perceptions of the programs and graduation rates. The study focused on nine of 15 effective strategies…

The high dropout rate of the United States Virgin Islands school district's ninth-grade students is a major educational problem and the catalyst for a myriad of social problems. Ninth grade academies and extended school day intervention programs have benefited only the academically prepared students. This qualitative case study examined educators'…

Adolescents in America are dropping out of school in alarming rates. In the school year 2009-2010, 514,238 adolescents dropped out of high school. While alternative education centers have been created to meet the needs of these individuals, they are not always successful as evidenced by a graduation rate below 5% in several alternative centers in…

Despite university efforts to decrease the number of students dropping out of college, attrition of online students occurs at an annual rate of 50% or more (Wang & Wu, 2004). Educational leaders understand the increased demand for online programs and courses because of students' requirements of convenience and flexibility (Kuo, Walker,…

More students are deciding to dropout of school prior to graduation. As a result the dropout rate has become a hot topic in education across the United States. The average high school dropout salary is approximately 50% less than the salary of a high school graduate. The social factors are another reason the dropout rate needs to be a high…

The quality of the construction of the high school dropout rate is the policy issue investigated in this dissertation. This qualitative dissertation explores the constructs necessary to create a high school dropout rate and seeks to unearth complexities in the construction of the high school dropout rate. Every single year, approximately 1.2…

The use of zero tolerance discipline in schools in the Mississippi Delta created considerable obstacles for African American students to excel, achieve, and graduate. This study used a qualitative phenomenological method to examine and assess how the application of the 1994 zero-tolerance disciplinary policies in Mississippi Delta public schools…

In 2008 the school dropout rate in Central Appalachia was at 27% and the drug problem was epidemic. An investigation centered on a sample of Central Appalachian residents who had been discharged from the local outpatient clinic for opiate dependency revealed insights into their educational experiences and an understanding of drug dependency and…

Community colleges have been criticized for having lower graduation rates than four year colleges, but few studies have looked at non-graduation transfer, in which a student leaves the community college for a four-year college without taking an associate degree. The current study utilizes institutional data and a discrete-time event history model…