Most students who begin at a community college leave without earning a degree. Given the growing emphasis on student success, many colleges have implemented re-enrollment campaigns designed to foster re-engagement and degree completion among former students. However, there is a lack of causal evidence on their effectiveness. We implement a text…

Institutions of higher education are encountering shifting trends in student enrollment and must embrace interdisciplinary approaches to address student recruitment and retention. This study explores reasons why students choose to leave an online MSW program. Data were collected through telephone interviews with students leaving the program during…

This paper address how we may understand inclusion strategies designed to reduce the gender gap in higher education in engineering and ICT engineering in particular. Based on a case study of a long-term inclusion effort and statistics on recruitment and retainment, we argue that inclusion initiatives which address important inclusion needs and put…

School systems are trying to attract top college graduates into teaching, but we know little about what dissuades this group from entering the profession. We provided college graduates who applied to a selective alternative pathway into teaching in Argentina with information on what their working conditions and pay would be if they were admitted…

Despite institutional strategies to prevent student withdrawal, attrition remains a concern across higher education sectors in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. In the case of Australian universities, attrition rates have remained consistently high since 2002. Some level of attrition is inevitable, but universities can influence…

The Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP)™ initiative, a nationwide project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, aims to improve education and employment outcomes for young people ages 15 to 25 who have been involved in the child welfare and justice systems or who are experiencing homelessness. Young people eligible for LEAP are likely to be…

We posited student behaviors observed during the recruitment process may reveal a student's commitment to our institution and their initial motivation to succeed, which influences their level of integration and decision to leave college or remain. In particular, we examined the impact of participating in a college fair, visiting the campus before…

According to the United States Census Bureau (2005), Hispanics are the youngest and largest minority group in the country. Unfortunately, Hispanics have the largest drop-out rates of any major ethnic group in the US, which will result in fewer Hispanics entering Ph.D. programs (Yosso & Solorzano, 2006). Because of this doctoral achievement gap…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) To Be Continued: Congress Passes Continuing Resolution to Keep Government Running, Buys Time to Pass Appropriations…

There are 11,000 or so people in Kentucky who came within a course or two of earning a college degree, but never did. Almost half a million more took a few college courses but then dropped out. Now educators are trying to lure back those erstwhile students to finish what they started. Over the next 12 years, Kentucky wants to double the number of…

This author reports that, among high-school students who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their classes, and whose first institutions were four-year colleges, two-thirds had not earned diplomas eight and a half years later. While four-year colleges admit and take money from hundreds of thousands of such students each year, the students who…

A project to improve Pan American's recruitment efforts in student markets already being served, rather than seeking new markets, is described. The project had two target groups: students accepted but not enrolled, and students who had left the university in good academic standing before graduating. Favorable results were achieved at low cost.…

To boost the enrollment for the spring 1983 semester, Pan American University started a project to find unenrolled applicants and former students. Academic deans sent these students a letter, a questionnaire, a partially completed application for re-admission, and a re-addressed, stamped envelope. (MLW)

The effectiveness of an administrative technique that sought to persuade students to reapply to college after dropping out for 1 year was tested. A sample of 1,620 students who were eligible for readmission were mailed two different types of letters from the university regarding possible reenrollment. One of these letters emphasized the…