Undergraduate enrollments have grown sixfold in the last half-century and continue to boom; today more than 80 percent of high-school graduates go to college within approximately eight years of graduation. One might expect those accomplishments to be celebrated, but the expansion of higher education has been accompanied by ambivalence, anxiety,…

Most students enter college with the intent of graduating in four years. However, a growing number of students are taking six years to don the cap and gown. There are any number of reasons why that is so, say students and educators. Diane Hall, the director of high school and community college relations at Florida A&M University's School of…

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…

With an annual yearly growth rate of 9.3 percent over the last two decades, Advanced Placement courses have become a juggernaut in American high school education. AP courses are routinely perceived as an indicator of educational rigor, and many schools push to enroll low-income or minority students in these courses in the hope of preparing them…

The report uses longitudinal data from the 1992-93 Baccalaureate and Beyond Study (B&B:93/03) to examine the characteristics related to graduate degree enrollment, persistence, and completion among 1992-93 bachelor's degree recipients. About 40 percent of 1992-93 bachelor's degree recipients had enrolled in a graduate degree program by 2003.…

"Doctorate Education in Canada: Findings from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, 2005/2006" is the third paper in a series of reports written by the Learning Policy Directorate of Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC) and the Centre for Education Statistics of Statistics Canada. Each report presents an overview of doctoral…

This article describes the results of a report released last week by the Council of Graduate Schools. The report, "Ph.D. Completion and Attrition: Analysis of Baseline Demographic Data From the Ph.D. Completion Project," is based on data from 24 universities in the United States and Canada. According to this report, women and members of…

Several years ago, leaders at Vanguard-Sentinel Career Centers, located in northwestern Ohio, began looking at the issue of student motivation. They were concerned that some students, even in their career-based programs, were falling through the cracks. For a variety of reasons, these students were not successful in the traditional high school…

Students who attend college part time are at a disadvantage relative to their full-time peers, according to a report released in June by the National Center for Education Statistics, an arm of the U.S. Department of Education. The report analyzes data from a 2004 national postsecondary student-aid study to create a profile of part-time…

A significant number of students transfer from one college to another each year, and historically this has created challenges for students striving to attain their higher education goals. The purpose of this study was to inform state articulation policy by collecting qualitative data to characterize issues that affect students as they transfer…

Background: Research reveals that the relationship between a student and a supervisor is so crucial that students cannot afford to leave it to chance. It must be managed. Phillips and Pugh (2000, p. 193) maintains that if students are to do this well, they must understand what their supervisors expect of them. Once they have this "inside…

The NEAIR (North East Association for Institutional Research) 2011 Conference Proceedings is a compilation of papers presented at the Boston, Massachusetts conference. Papers in this document include: (1) Are Students Dropping Out or Dragging Out the College Experience? The Roles of Socioeconomic Status and Academic Background (Leslie S. Stratton…

The elapsed time taken to earn a Ph.D. in economics is analyzed with data from 620 (of about 950) 1996-1997 Ph.D.s. The median is 5.3 years. A duration model indicates that those students at several of the most highly regarded programs, those supported by no-work fellowships, and those holding a prior master's degree finish faster than others.…

A study of the time it took 618 students to earn Ph.D.s in economics found that those with fellowships or prior master's degrees finished faster. Those who took jobs before completion and women with children took longer. No differences appeared in relation to marital status, gender, age, and program size. (Author/SK)

Federal higher education policy has shifted over the past few decades from grants to loans as the primary means for providing access to postsecondary education for low- and moderate-income families. With this shift, policy makers have begun tracking student loan default rates as a key indicator of the efficacy of student loan programs. This effort…