Postsecondary institutions, especially selective ones, use standardized tests such as SAT and ACT as important indicators to measure applicants' academic abilities. However, many studies have found that the test scores correlate to applicants' racial/ethnic backgrounds. Selective institutions work hard to secure their diverse classes. Hence, more…

The decisions that students make about their educational attainment have profound impacts on their future economic, demographic, and social outcomes. These decisions, however, do not happen in a vacuum. There is a long tradition of research in sociology, education, and behavioral economics that has studied inequality in educational decision making…

Education is the value proposition that provides individuals the opportunity to become meaningful contributors to society, their community, and their immediate families. It is the calling card of personal achievement and individual intrinsic benefits. Education is about access and opportunity. Institutions continue to navigate strategies of access…

The purpose of this study is to understand how the well-being of Asian American college students is formed at a highly selective, elite institution. Prillentensky's psychopolitical model of well-being and Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of development, in conjunction with Asian Critical Theory, were used as frameworks to understand the impact of…

This dissertation illustrates how admission policies shape access to postsecondary education. Evidence comes from two sectors, each with a distinct type of admission system: highly selective institutions that practice holistic admission (chapters 2 and 3) and less selective public four-year colleges that use admission thresholds (chapter 4). The…

The past two decades have seen the idea of internationalization move into the mainstream of higher education policy and practice, on a global scale. In countries like the US and UK however, higher education is widely perceived as a hierarchical field, where high- and low-status universities are differentiated from one another: serving different…

North Carolina is a state with a rich higher education history, which matches the diversity and number of higher education institutions that can be found there. The significant investment of both tax dollars and public support for higher education in North Carolina has created a unique environment in which public policy significantly impacts both…

Internationally, higher education has expanded greatly since the closing decades of the twentieth century. China was no exception. This study is intended to examine the status quo of issues relating to equity and access to higher education in the context of educational expansion and differentiation in China. Two research questions are addressed in…

Despite the precedent established in the "University of California Board of Regents v. Bakke," that race may be used as a factor in admissions policies at state institutions of higher education, state and federal court decisions were divided over whether the use of race in admissions decisions was a violation of the Equal Protection…

Chapter 1 examines the effects of college quality on students' learning, employment and earnings in Colombia. Scores on a national college "entry" test solely determine admission to many selective Colombian universities, creating exogenous peer and resource quality variation near admission cutoffs. In one regression discontinuity (RD)…