We combine administrative data from a regional public university with a novel revealed-preference indicator of student friendships to show that socially connected first-year university students are more likely to be retained into their second year. The impact of friends on retention is statistically and economically significant: each friend raises…

Many students who enter college do not finish, reflecting numerous academic, financial, and social barriers to postsecondary completion. Success Boston Coaching (SBC) provides students in the Greater Boston area with coaching during their first 2 years of college to help them overcome barriers to postsecondary completion and connect them to…

The purpose of this non-experimental, correlational quantitative study was to compare the graduation rates of first-time, full-time students with disabilities to those of first-time, full-time students in the general population at the participating university. The sample used for analysis was full-time, first-time students entering between 2015…

The Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) has synthesized key data on English learners (ELs) into two-page sheets on a variety of subjects. This fact sheet focuses on: (1) State-Level Graduation Rate Percentages for English Learners: School Year 2019-20; (2) Graduation Rate Percentages for English Learners and All Students by State: School…

This paper summarises exploratory analysis undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of using machine learning approaches to calculate projected completion rates for vocational education and training (VET) programs, and compares this with the current approach used at the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) -- Markov chains…

The purpose of this study is to determine if and to what extent disparities in the referral of student subpopulations for discretionary discipline exist and if changes in disparity correlate with changes in campus academic achievement. In this study, 31 million observations of discipline data generated by reason code 21, violations of the student…

In this article, the authors sought to discover if participation in formal debate programs translates into better academic achievement and attainment for students. First, individual debaters' reading and math test scores over time were looked at and students were compared to themselves in years when they did and did not participate in debate. The…

The purpose of this quantitative study is to understand the relationship between a One-Stop Shop unit and student retention rates at Texas public and private higher education institutions. This study entitled "Exploring the Relationship between a One-Stop Shop and Student Retention" seeks to explore the unit in which brings together the…

Increasing graduation rates continues to be a high priority for administrators at community colleges nationwide. While several factors affect graduation rates, many researchers focus on how a student's status as declared or undecided may impact their likelihood of graduating. This study aims to examine the potential relationship between…

During the past several years, the federal and state governments have adopted a college completion agenda using graduation rates as evidence of student success. With the demand for increased accountability on colleges and universities to ensure student success, institutions of higher education are searching for more effective ways to help students…

Florida's high school graduation rate is based on the percentage of students who graduated with a standard diploma within four years of their first full year of enrollment in ninth grade in the state. However, adjustments are made to this cohort over time to: (1) add incoming transfer students based on their grade level and year of entry; (2)…

Sadly, an enduring legacy of the United States is inequities between groups of people based on their skin color. These inequities are ingrained within the educational system, such as a lack of opportunities and interventions and significant gaps in support and resources that target underserved populations. The problem that this study addressed was…

This quantitative study tested a relationship between the bell schedule models used in Oregon high schools, and mean graduation rates during the school years 2017-2020. One-hundred fourteen public high schools in Oregon with adjusted cohorts of at least 100 students were examined. Bell schedules were categorized by the day/meet pattern as seven…

Objective: Policymakers in many states are endeavoring to increase graduation rates among older community college students. However, we know little about how the factors that influence college completion among older students differ from their younger peers. We aim to identify features of institutional contexts in which adult community college…

This paper examines the impact of a reform aimed at expediting graduation times in Italian universities by reducing the number of exams students must pass to obtain a fixed number of credits. Using event-study estimates that leverage the reform's staggered implementation, we find that this policy change led to an increase in on-time graduation…