Community colleges enroll nearly half of the students enrolled in public undergraduate programs and a disproportionate number of first-generation, low-income, underprepared and minority students. The new national completion agenda has brought both visibility and pressure to these open-access institutions, which have completion rates of less than…

This article analyses the school exclusion and subsequent educational inclusion of pregnant young women participating in a course of antenatal and key skills education at an alternative educational setting. It examines the young women's transitions from "failure" in school to "success" in motherhood and re-engagement with…

This paper describes results from a case study that focuses on the initial implementation of a new, online instructional program, the WebIT M.S. in Instructional Technology, offered at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville during 2008-2010. Survey data were collected from two groups of students: a self-selected sample of those students who…

This study examines narratives of English learners who have either dropped out or considered dropping out as a result of their experience in high school. This research seeks to determine at which point students left or considered leaving school, which often goes undetected in traditional quantitative data collection methods. The common themes that…

Despite continuous efforts to increase retention, dropout rates are high in distance universities. The objectives of this study were: 1) to investigate the extent and causes of non re-enrollment at a mega university, Korea National Open University; and 2) to suggest actions to improve the retention of students, in general, and those with higher…

Across focus groups consisting of current and former community college students in four states (Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas), a consistent message resounded: Students want to be more connected to their colleges, from the moment they enter until the day they complete their studies. They want to feel more connected to faculty, staff,…

Many students are entering college underprepared and do not earn a degree because of the many barriers they encounter. The purpose of this study was to identify reasons underprepared students did not complete college and to examine strategies, resources, and programs that underprepared students could have used to persist in college. The…

Purpose. The purpose of the study was to determine academic achievement differences between those Title I students enrolled in music classes and Title I students who are not enrolled in music classes. A second purpose was to determine educators' perceptions regarding the educational justice implications of excluding nonproficient Title I students…

The General Educational Development (GED) credential is often considered to be the equivalent of a high school diploma for students who do not graduate from high school. A GED credential can expand opportunities in the labor market (Song and Hsu 2008) and in postsecondary education for those who obtain it. Nearly all postsecondary institutions (98…

This paper adds to the considerable literature on low completion rates for apprenticeships and traineeships by looking at whether the reasons given for not completing vary by how far the individual is into their contract of training. The approach the authors take is to calculate the probability of apprentices and trainees giving a particular…

African American students have been historically underrepresented in gifted programs throughout the United States. Research about retaining identified African American students in gifted programs is limited. This qualitative phenomenological study examined the perceptions of a purposeful sample of seven identified talented and potentially talented…

The purpose of this paper is to examine a single study participant and overall graduation rates as they relate to both the general education and special education population. As more federal requirements are defined, especially the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, along with individual state requirements, the overall graduation rate of both of…

The problem. This study investigated whether there were statistically significant differences in perceptions of high school students with specific learning disabilities with respect to reasons for either remaining in high school or leaving high school on their 18th birthday. Method. A quasi-experimental study was conducted. 30 students who were…

Schools face the dilemma of transforming both the trend of students dropping out of school and the associated negative socioeconomic outcomes into a positive path of persistence and school completion. Despite ongoing efforts of the federal and state government, as well as those of the local school districts, this problem continues to burden the…

Today and every day, in neighborhoods and communities throughout Philadelphia, young people are making decisions that will change their lives forever. Some will decide to stay in school, graduate, and prepare themselves for college and careers. Others, who left school without a diploma, will summon the courage to seek out educational programs they…