This paper aims to illustrate the extent to which structural changes and institutional modifications within the higher education landscape influenced the rates of completion, dropout, and changes in the subject of study of Swiss university students between 1975 and 2018. Using administrative data, our results indicate that the completion rate and…

STEM preparation--especially high school math course-taking--is a key predictor of college entrance. Previous research suggests that high school English learners (ELs) not only take fewer advanced math courses but also enroll in college at much lower rates than non-ELs--a group that includes former ELs. In the present study, we alter the analytic…

Graduating from high school is an important step toward becoming a successful adult. It is evidence that one has met the standards set by the public school system. Standards-Based Reform has been pursued since the 1980s and culminated in the development of the Common Core State Standards that were implemented by most states between 2011 and 2015.…

This paper documents several facts about graduate program graduation rates using administrative data covering public and nonprofit graduate students in Texas. Despite conventional wisdom that most graduate students complete their programs, only 58 percent of who started their program in 2004 graduated within 6 years. Between the 2004 and 2013…

Concerns about rising college costs and uncertain economic returns have combined with a wave of populist backlash to reduce public trust in higher education, which plummeted to new lows in 2023. President Biden, who ran his 2020 campaign on a platform that included student loan forgiveness and free community college, has focused some of his recent…

Academic Development Programmes (ADPs) are a distinct category of South African Higher Education that aims to provide alternative access to students who meet the minimum entry requirements for university but not necessarily for the particular academic programme of their choice. Although these programmes have existed for over 30 years, limited…

The student retention of freshman students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities as of recent has been comparably low which leads to low graduation rates. To understand this phenomenon, there is a need to investigate the factors that impact the enrollment and retention of freshman students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.…

For over two decades, there have been sustained efforts across the nation to increase high school graduation rates toward the goal of a 90 percent high school graduation rate for the Class of 2020 and improving educational outcomes for all students. The work of many educators, policymakers, organizations, and young people across the country…

As demand for college graduates grows (Times Higher Education, 2023) persistence rates for first-generation students continue to lag (Toutkoushain et al., 2018, 2021). Complicating our understanding of this opportunity gap is the diversity of how first-generation student status is defined (Jo Peralta & Klonowski, 2017). We argue that while…

Analyzing degree attainment data over a 30-year period, the authors found that relative to their enrollment, HBCUs overproduce Black graduates who obtain education degrees compared to non-HBCUs. Furthermore, Black men receiving education degrees at HBCUs do so at higher rates than their overall enrollment. Implications for school districts,…

Individuals with autism increasingly enroll in universities, but researchers know little about how their study progresses over time towards degree completion. This exploratory population study uses structural equation modeling to examine patterns in study progression and degree completion of bachelor's students with autism spectrum disorder (n =…

In the higher education landscape, community colleges have served to help many under-resourced populations gain access to post-secondary education and a chance to pursue their dreams (Bailey, Jaggers, & Jenkins, 2015; Schudde & Goldrick-Rab, 2015). As with many under-resourced populations of students, the stakes are high for incarcerated…

Objective/Research Question: Community college graduation rates are typically quite low, and developmental mathematics enrollment and coursetaking patterns may constrain academic outcomes. To identify ways in which community college graduation rates may be improved, decision trees were utilized to examine the STEM coursetaking patterns of N =…

Black and Latinx four-year college graduation rates remain low, per the research, which corresponds to 45.9 percent for Blacks and 55 percent for Latinx, but when compared to White and Asian four-year college students, these rates are 71.7 percent for Asians, and 67.2 percent for Whites (Shapiro et al., 2017). This descriptive qualitative research…

Recently there has been an emphasis on how time spent outside of the classroom can affect student outcomes, including high school graduation, with the hope of closing academic achievement gaps along socioeconomic and racial lines. This paper provides experimental evidence regarding a particular type of out-of-school activity--early work…