Two-year colleges enroll many students every year that are not prepared for college level work. The purpose of this study was to determine what factors contribute to students needing to take remediation as well as what factors lead to successfully exiting developmental education. This study looked at students who began postsecondary education in…

Because of increasing mobility among various college student populations, both the baccalaureate degree attainment of community college beginners and the role played by their receiving 4-year institution are growing in importance. In this study, we examined how the academic and social involvement of community college transfer students differs by…

To examine the relationships between beginning public 2-year students' academic progress and labor market participation, this report uses data from the 2012/14 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:12/14). The report explores the demographics, enrollment intensity, and 3-year attainment and persistence of students who started in…

Studies of community college finance often focus on revenue sources from the state and local government, private foundations, and tuition. While these resources are important, an often-neglected source of revenue is employer-sponsored educational assistance benefits for students. Given the dearth of literature on the benefits of this funding…

Student retention has garnered increased attentions in higher education. Drawing from various theoretical perspectives, researchers have developed multiple theoretical models to explain or predict student retention. Most models, however, were intended for traditional aged, full-time students at 4-year colleges or universities. The rapid growth of…

Prior research studies associated the employment of part-time faculty with student degree and/or certificate completion (Benjamin, 2002; Ehrenberg & Zhang, 2005; Jacoby, 2006; Leslie & Gappa, 2002; Umbach, 2008; Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005). To date, institutional-level data have been utilized to investigate whether such employment…

Drawing upon the latest data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:04/09) and the Postsecondary Education Transcript Data (PETS:09), this study employed propensity score matching and postmatching logistic regression to estimate the extent to which postsecondary coenrollment affects persistence and attainment of students…

The underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is a complex problem that continues to persist at the postsecondary level, particularly in computer science and engineering fields. This dissertation explored the pre-college and college level factors that influenced undergraduate women's persistence in…

Background/Context: Student utilization of complex enrollment patterns has been identified as a significant recent development in higher education. Nearly a dozen different multi-institutional attendance patterns have been identified, including co-enrollment. Co-enrollment is simultaneous enrollment at two or more colleges or universities during…

For many underrepresented minority students, the path to the baccalaureate degree begins with initial enrollment at a community college. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of students interested in transferring actually do transfer to a 4-year institution. Of these transfers, few graduate with a baccalaureate degree within 6 years of initial…

Almost half of postsecondary students are currently enrolled in community colleges. These institutions imply that even amongst students with the same degree outcome there is considerable heterogeneity in the path taken to get there. I estimate the life-cycle private and social returns to the different postsecondary paths and sequential decisions…

The summer school sessions that colleges offer their undergraduates are sometimes considered supplementary activities and are rarely perceived as central to a college's mission or effectiveness. However, analyses of college transcript data that tracked a nationally-representative sample of undergraduates for several years and through multiple…

These Web Tables examine the demographic and postsecondary enrollment characteristics of undergraduates who attended for-profit institutions in 2007-08 and present the 6-year outcomes of undergraduates who first enrolled in for-profit postsecondary institutions in 2003-04. Data are presented for all for-profit students and separately for students…

Addressed to institutional researchers, this report from California's Chabot College presents information on National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data sets. Included is a discussion on how these data sets can be used to create peer groups of U.S. colleges, and to produce statistics on major student variables for each of these groups.…

This report analyzes patterns of undergraduate transfer behavior of students who entered postsecondary education during the academic year 1989-90. Data were derived from the spring 1994 follow-up of the 1990 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study. The report notes that attendance at multiple institutions is widespread: at 4-year…