Despite being criticized as unrepresentative and misleading, retention and graduation rates are an important part of college-search web sites and accountability systems, and they frequently have been used as indicators of institutional quality and effectiveness in educational research. Retention and graduation rates are often compared over time…

The introduction of demand-driven funding following the Bradley Review has seen the progressive removal of constraints on the number of undergraduate places that universities can offer, therefore allowing universities to set their own growth levels. In South Australia, there is little unmet demand for university places. Traditionally, universities…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of doctoral students in a western Canadian university about the doctoral programs offered in the Faculty of Education. The research for the study was undertaken using a mixed-method explanatory design. Our initial research question was: "what are some of the factors that doctoral…

Previous research dealing with educational and vocational choices of college students has resulted in contradictory theories about why some students remain undecided. To determine if self-reported personality characteristics, when studied in conjunction with tested characteristics, increased the ability to discriminate between academic…

A study was conducted by Prince George's Community College, in Maryland, to determine outcomes after 4 years for the 2,643 first-time students who entered the college in fall 1990. The analysis was based on an outcomes typology developed at the college which defines outcomes as award and transfer; transfer without an award; award without transfer;…

Variables that best explain variance in student attrition for 168 freshmen students from a college of agriculture within a major midwestern university were studied in 1979. Variables were selected from a theoretical causal model of student attrition (Bean, 1981), a review of the literature (Bean, 1978), and five empirical investigations conducted…

This paper examines the changing demographics of American society and the impact of these changes on higher education. Discussions include a historical background of early American demography, the building and expansion of the population base, and census changes through various generations of the baby boom years and beyond. Next, the report…

Students assessed as high risk at Essex Community College (Maryland) were paired by identical scores on vocabulary and reading comprehension tests and as to whether they elected to take a learning skills course (N=56) or to ignore advice and not take the course (N=67). The learning skills course uses a programmed multimedia approach and as much…

In an effort to obtain a more complete picture of student outcomes, the City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) undertook a 6-year study of the academic experiences of 10,777 students who entered in fall 1986 with no previous college experience. In addition to basic data on student characteristics, the study gathered information on student persistence in…

Factors that influence voluntary withdrawal from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are investigated. A survey based on a cohort of students admitted for the first time in fall 1977 was conducted with a response rate of approximately 50 percent. Major and minor reasons for not returning to the university are tabulated for males and…

This paper outlines issues related to transfer in the San Diego (California) Community College District (SDCCD), discusses approaches to studying transfer and provides data on the number and characteristics of SDCCD students included in the 1992 Transfer Assembly study conducted by the Center for the Study of Community Colleges at the University…

The Transfer Assembly is a research effort of the Los Angeles-based Center for the Study of Community Colleges. The Assembly defines transfer students as "all students entering a two-year college in a given year who have no prior college experience, who complete at least 12 credit units at the college, and who subsequently enroll at a senior…

Data from the college Board's Admissions Test Program (ATP) Summary Reports are used to analyze the student market attraction for ATP report designations, the application rate, the acceptance rate, the enrollment yield, and the dropout rate for 254 different student groups for 25l colleges. Student groups are defined in terms of their College…