Purpose and Method of Study: This study focused on the relationship between the cost of undergraduate education (COUE) and graduation rates in four-year institutions in Oklahoma. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the cost of undergraduate education (COUE) and graduation rates at four-year higher education…

In this dissertation, I study some of the factors that determine schooling decisions in middle-income economies in Latin America. In the first chapter, I examine the impacts of a large-scale program in Colombia that installs water treatment facilities in rural schools. To identify causal effects on student and community outcomes, I leverage…

Low student completion rates have increased pressure on college and university administrators across the country to raise retention and graduation rates and have forced the review of many practices on campus. This qualitative study aimed to examine the effects of financial aid on higher educational persistence among African American males.…

This dissertation consists of two chapters studying the importance of household income for shaping student outcomes in the market for higher education in the United States. The first chapter uses the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 to document that conditional on student ability, high-income students are more likely to enroll in college and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between college persistence and family income, parental education level, and type of financial aid for first-time, full-time Hispanic economically disadvantaged students selected from a South Texas Hispanic-serving institution. The dependent variable, college persistence, was measured by…

Federal need based financial aid receipt and remedial course load were the central foci of an integrated model designed to predict six-year bachelor's degree attainment. Data represented 2004/09 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:04/09) respondents who graduated from high school in 2003 and enrolled the same year as full time…

The purpose of this study was to find out if the demographic variables of country of origin, generation in the United States (immigration status), income and parental education had an impact on the financial aid packages of Hispanic undergraduate students. This dissertation asked: What is the relation between generation in the United States,…

The number of students entering universities in Lebanon has steadily increased in the past ten years. This trend makes it imperative that the different stakeholders, like students, parents, schools, universities, and education officials, understand what influences the decision of a student to choose a specific college. Understanding these factors…