This study looks at the evolution of the financial aid process as a function of higher education administration and its impact on the recruitment and retention of college students. It illustrates the effects on enrollment of differing financial aid strategies and recommends possible directions for meeting the challenges of the 21st century.…

Based on admissions, academic performance and persistence outcomes data provided by West Chester University, this report analyzes the performance and success rates of former Community College of Philadelphia (CCP) students who applied to or attended the university between 1986 and 1990. The first section contains information on application,…

Berkeley undergraduates were surveyed in 1970 and again in 1973 to identify determinants of the decision to leave college among four types of leavers: failing transfers, failing dropouts, transfers in good standing, and dropouts in good standing. The following student characteristics are analyzed: family background, academic preparation, family…

Students who withdrew from the State University of New York at Oswego during academic year 1974-1975 were surveyed to study the differences between them and their classmates who persisted. A sample of 52 students responded to questionnaires inquiring why they had chosen to attend Oswego, why they left early, and what their present educational…

The progress of students under 21 years old at the United Kingdom's Open University (OU) was compared with a sample of mature students, using sociological and psychometric research methods. The research goal was to consider whether the OU's teaching system originally designed for adults is suited to the needs and circumstances of students in the…

Some findings about attrition from two- and four-year colleges and universities based on the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS) are presented. Attrition is defined as withdrawal from college without completing a degree. After 2 years, the four-year institutions had lost 23.5 percent of their entrants. More two-year…

The conference focused on various perspectives of the role of institutional research in a time of retrenchment: policy analysis, economic assumptions, resource management, academic planning and cooperative statewide planning. Among the themes addressed were: enrollment projections and financial planning; institutional efficiency and effectiveness;…

As a response to the problems of nontraditional student attrition at two-year and four-year urban colleges, this paper introduces the constructs of career decision-making self-efficacy, perceived stress, and financial difficulty into a model built on the synthesis of Cabrera (1993). A questionnaire was administered to adult nontraditional (age 24…

This study, which is a companion to a study on 10-year enrollment and graduation patterns for new freshmen and transfers, sought to quantify how much more likely college students were to graduate if they were transfers, were enrolled continuously, were mostly full-time, and began their academic careers with good first-semester grade point averages…

This is Volume 1 of the Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1891-'92, containing Part I. This volume includes the Commissioner's Introduction and Part I, which contains the chapters: (1) General Classified Summary of Pupils of All Grades in Public and Private Schools and Institutions; (2) Statistics of State Common School Systems;…

A follow-up study of undergraduate student attrition at Indiana University is presented. It builds upon previous research on student attrition documenting high rates of attrition among Black and Hispanic undergraduates. It also builds upon the Conceptual Model of Black Student Attrition. One goal is to compare persisters and non-persisters within…

Students at Indiana University, Bloomington who were enrolled in the University Division in the 1979 spring or summer semester but who did not reenroll in the 1979 fall semester were surveyed. The 687 responding students were classified as academic dismissals (32 percent), voluntary withdrawals, (51 percent), or intercampus transfers (17 percent),…

This study analyzed institutional factors that significantly affect cohort default rates at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and assessed the potential for reducing these rates. It has been hypothesized that the HBCUs most successful in lowering student cohort default rates are those that have also succeeded in increasing…

A survey concerning 2,449 graduate medical students who withdrew and 887 who took extended leave from residencies in the 1991-92 year investigated the reasons for leaving and patterns among residency years, specialties, men and women, and ethnic groups. Comparisons were also made with osteopathic, foreign, and Canadian programs. (MSE)

This research brief reviews and analyzes national data on college going, persistence, and graduation. It compares characteristics of students who enter college immediately after high school graduation with other types of postsecondary entrants, considers traditional versus nontraditional paths of college going, and examines college persisters and…