The purpose of this correlational study was to explore the relationship between the new statewide two-year financial aid program, Tennessee Promise, and college choice among high school seniors in four counties in upper Northeast Tennessee. Independent variables included GPA, concern about ability to pay for college, and plans to attend a two-year…

Are statewide college Promise programs an effective way to increase college access and success? It's hard to say. While these programs are becoming more common, they vary widely along a number of dimensions. RFA's new "Statewide College Promise Framework" is a tool that can be used to capture and compare important variation in the…

Research for Action has studied statewide Promise programs since 2017, with in-depth analysis in four states--Delaware, Nevada, Oregon, and Tennessee. Our research in these states includes an extensive review of legislative and policy documents; 146 interviews with policymakers, institutional leaders, and high school staff; site visits to 8…

In early 1995, the University of Tennessee at Martin (UTM) sought permission to terminate three existing engineering technology degree programs and replace them with a single Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) degree. As part of the requirements to proceed with the implementation of an engineering program, the University of Tennessee system…

Student retention and low graduation rates are the most significant problems associated with state provided student aid. Evidence suggests that the problems are chronic to certain populations in state colleges and universities. This research examines lottery scholarship data to determine those factors that affect scholarship retention and…

In order to consider whether a course in college algebra should be a prerequisite for taking psychology statistics, we recorded students' grades in elementary psychology statistics and in college algebra at a 4-year university. Students who earned credit in algebra prior to enrolling in statistics for the first time had a significantly higher mean…

This study examined if the Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarship (TELS), which began in 2004, was related to student retention at the six Tennessee Board of Regents four-year institutions. This study investigated the impact of the TELS on student retention at TBR universities and general knowledge regarding retention. Post-facto data were…

This study examined undergraduate and graduate engineering students' epistemological beliefs as a function of their educational level. Schommer's (1998) Epistemological Questionnaire was used to assess the beliefs in quick learning, certain knowledge, fixed ability, and simple knowledge of 396 students attending two universities in Western…

Each year, thousands of American students enter postsecondary institutions unprepared for college-level work and are subsequently placed in remedial or developmental courses. Several recent studies have examined the impact of these courses on student outcomes, but such studies focus exclusively on students who need just one or two classes; the…

This paper reports on the results of a research project that focused on the relationship between (1) high school foreign language study and college cumulative grade point average (GPA), and (2) high school foreign language study and college freshman English cumulative GPA in a random sample of Tennessee public college graduates in 1987-88. The…

The relationships among test scores from the American College Testing program test (ACT), the Pre-Professional Skills Test (PPST), the American College Testing College Outcomes Measures Project test (ACT COMP), the National Teacher Examinations (NTE), final grade point average (GPA) in the major field of study, and overall GPA were studied in 615…