This Action Research with a survey component study examined the various obstacles that lead to minority student's lack of persistence and failure to graduate two and four year colleges and universities. Minority students have many obstacles that start at a very early age that prevent them from being academically competitive, and travel with them…

Beginning with the class of 2023, graduating Pennsylvania high school students will need to demonstrate career or postsecondary preparedness in addition to meeting existing statewide graduation requirements. Act 158 of 2018 outlines five pathways to meeting this requirement, including two that rely exclusively on Keystone Exam performance and…

Each year, the country's most selective four-year institutions invest significant resources to recruit talented high school students from across the country. These students, mostly affluent and white, contemplate admission offers and consider moves to new locales to pursue their postsecondary plans. Yet, many of these selective institutions are…

The Pennsylvania Department of Education revised the statewide graduation requirement (Act 158) to include postsecondary preparedness effective with the 2023 graduation class. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was adopted to mandate schools to provide the resources to assist students to meet academic standards leading to career and college…

In the past year, a number of states have eliminated the requirements for high school exit or graduation examinations and retroactively issued diplomas to students who had completed all other graduation requirements but had not passed the required examinations. On the other hand, some states have begun to require students to pass a civics test as…

This article presents information about the planning, implementation, and findings of an assessment-based student portfolio designed by the faculty of a sociology program at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, a midsized public regional liberal arts institution. First, we briefly present the rationale for implementing a portfolio system and the…

In an effort to improve student success and thus retention, the College of Arts & Sciences at a highly selective MidAtlantic private undergraduate university in the United States developed a for-credit course titled "Psychology of Success." The course, grounded in positive psychology, adopts a strengths-based approach. Students who…

With today's greater focus on preparing students for college and careers, the Center on Standards and Assessment Implementation (CSAI) recently conducted a review of the coursework that states are requiring students to complete in order to receive a high school diploma, and of what diploma options are available for students in each state. This…

Data-based problem solving within a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) can help state education agencies and local education agencies (LEAs) improve graduation rates for students with disabilities. To facilitate problem solving within an MTSS, states and LEAs need efficient systems and processes for analyzing and integrating data across…

Allowing high school students to fulfill a math or science high school graduation requirement via a computer science credit may encourage more student to pursue computer science coursework. This Education Trends report is an update to the original report released in April 2015 and explores state policies that allow or require districts to apply…

"The Talent Blind Spot," which is divided into two reports, demonstrates that, each year, more than 50,000 high-achieving, low- and moderate-income community college students do not transfer to a four-year institution. Approximately 15,000 of these students have a 3.7 GPA or higher, which suggests they could succeed at even the most…

There is limited research on the experiences of first-generation students who have completed their second year and enrolled for a third year in order to continue their studies even though this population of students are the most likely to drop out of college in their second year. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how current…

This study used a qualitative interpretive approach to examine perceptions of adult students in their final semester prior to graduation by analyzing what they believe contributed to their persistence to degree completion. Participants were all pursuing undergraduate degrees, were 25 years-of-age or older, and were enrolled in one of three schools…

The College Possible program provides intensive coaching by near-peer mentors, peer group support, and opportunities for academic and non-cognitive skill building to low-income students through an intensive two-year curriculum in junior and senior years of high school. The goal of the program is to close the achievement gap between low-income…

A college degree is increasingly vital for career mobility and economic success as more employers are requiring greater levels of education and credentials. For more than 150 years, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have played a leading role in graduating black students and have made significant contributions to the workforce…