As colleges and universities strive to increase persistence and aid students in reaching graduation, they are utilizing alternative communication strategies like text messaging. Behavioral economics researchers suggest personalized, regular nudges can help college students make decisions that positively impact their college career and keep them on…

Recent research suggests that dual enrollment programs are a useful recruiting tool for colleges and universities as many high school students remain at their dual enrollment institution after high school graduation. Students staying enrolled at their dual enrollment institution for college may be beneficial for institutions, but is it beneficial…

This longitudinal study was aimed to describe and understand student adjustment trajectories during the college transition. Participants came from a large random sample of Quebec high school students. They completed a multidimensional measure of adjustment at two times before entering college and at two other times after college admission.…

This study explores how student employment affects college persistence and how these effects differ by individual likelihood of participating in student employment. I analyze data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 using propensity score matching and stratification-multilevel analysis. This study finds that engaging in intense…

The purpose of this review of literature is to identify variables (Hart 1998), relevant to AI/AN postsecondary persistence, and to examine the relationship between findings and postsecondary persistence theories at 2 and 4-year institutions. An exhaustive review with selective citation was used to locate relevant documents. Due to the limited…

To address conceptual and methodological shortcomings in the extant literature on student mobility, this study employs event history modeling to describe and explain how state policy levers, specifically state grant aid, relates to mobility and baccalaureate degree completion. We find that state grant aid reduces mobility, but less so than…

In this study, we use detailed survey and institutional data from a prospective panel study of students attending a highly selective, private university to examine the effects of fraternity or sorority membership on a range of collegiate outcomes. Previous research has given insufficient attention to selection issues inherent in the study of…

According to prevailing theory and anecdotal evidence, the congruence between institutional attributes and students' needs, interests, and preferences plays a key role in promoting college satisfaction and retention. However, this assertion has received little direct empirical attention, and the few available studies appear to have some key…

While the literature on postsecondary student success identifies important academic and social factors associated with student outcomes, one question that persists concerns the influence of financial aid. We use the National Student Clearinghouse's StudentTracker service to develop a more complete model of student success that accommodates…

Vincent Tinto originally asserted, "… it is the individual's integration into the academic and social systems of the college that most directly related to his continuance in that college" (Tinto, "Review of Educational Research" 45(10): 89-125, 1975), yet the rates of college degree attainment are still stagnant.…

Using a longitudinal sample of Texas high school seniors of 2002 who enrolled in college within the calendar year of high school graduation, we examine variation in college persistence according to the economic composition of their high schools, which serves as a proxy for unmeasured high school attributes that are conductive to postsecondary…

In the past two decades, although access to higher education for American students has improved, student persistence in 4-year institutions is far from assured. There have been a number of research studies on student persistence/dropout in higher education, but most have focused on the characteristics and behavior of students as illustrated by the…

Social Integration has been found by several scholars to have a significant impact on the subsequent institutional commitment and retention of college students. Few of these scholars, however, have attempted to examine whether social integration has a different impact on female students as compared to male students. This paper presents the results…

The purpose of this study is to identify student and institutional characteristics that influence the probability for graduation. The study delves further into the probability for graduation by examining how far the student deviates from the institutional mean with respect to academics and affordability; this concept is referred to as the "match."…

We studied the effects of academic performance, motivation, and social connectedness on third-year retention, transfer, and dropout behavior. To accommodate the three outcome categories and nesting of data within institutions, we fit a hierarchical multinomial logistic regression path model with first-year academic performance as a mediating…