Community colleges serve a vital role in the education of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors in the United States, however, most research to date on STEM pipeline persistence from academia to the workforce has focused on four-year colleges, which limits understanding of the potential of two-year pathways in…

Faculty diversity has benefits for all students; however, increasing faculty diversity may be particularly helpful in reducing academic disparities for students of color. This study examines the impact of having a professor of the same race/ethnicity on student performance. A longitudinal model was tested to examine how campus racial/ethnic…

People participate in vocational education and training (VET) for a variety of reasons and at different stages of their life. Some undertake VET to gain the vocational skills necessary to enter the labour market for the first time, while others enter in order to upgrade existing skills, learn new ones, or simply for personal interest. Successful…

In the context of ongoing discussions about student costs of non-credit developmental writing, this study reports on the affordances of Basic Writing as a traditional, stand-alone course at a career-focused, four-year university. Participants were students who took Basic Writing and Composition 1 between Fall 2011 and Spring 2013 (N = 2,693) in…

With the passage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill in 2008, more than 1.4 million service members and their families became eligible for higher education benefits, and veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan enrolled in colleges and universities in record numbers. The first wave of research about these new student veterans focused primarily on…

This exploratory study determined PhD completions at a research-intensive university in New Zealand and considered factors affecting PhD completions. Completion data were calculated for PhD cohorts at the University of Otago from 2000 to 2012 (n = 2770) and survival models determined whether gender, enrolment status, age at admission, citizenship,…

This paper examines factors that are associated with the probability of completion of apprenticeship programmes by individual learners in England. Data are from the 2008/2009 academic year Individualised Learner Record--the administrative database containing information on all learners in the Further Education system in England. The analysis…

Many researchers have explored the relationships between the likelihood of graduating from college and demographic and pre-college factors such as gender, race/ethnicity, high school grade point average (GPA), and standardized test scores. However, additional factors such as a student's college major, home address, or use of learning support in…

One of the most important issues in any educational environment is identifying factors that promote academic success. A plethora of research on such factors exists across most academic fields, involving a wide range of student demographics, and the definition of student success varies across the range of studies published. The analysis in this…

In recent years, the option of enrolling in honors programs and colleges at major public universities has increasingly become an alternative to elite private and public institutions for some of the brightest and most academically-talented high school graduates. To attract these high-achieving students, universities may offer applicants incentives…

Students from farmworker families are often cited as having deficits that prohibit completion of undergraduate degree program. Statistics regarding graduates of the College Assistance Migrant Program in a southwestern university have shown graduation rates that are similar to the general population of graduates at that university. This qualitative…

Universities are facing challenges in the area of student retention and graduation. A critical question is what schools can do to improve undergraduate students' intentions to complete college. Dropout intention has been studied, yet the exploration of college completion intention has not been thoroughly examined. Using structural equation…

Students enrolled in distance education courses tend to have lower course completion rates than those who attend face-to-face classes (Simpson, 2013). This article reports on a collective case study undertaken at a vocational, distance education provider in New Zealand, whose course completion rates have risen over recent years to match those of…

Consistently and unmistakably, data show a persistent gap separating Latinos and Black males from other student groups on measures of academic progress and college completion. These gaps exist across higher education. They are undeniable and unacceptable. Men of color have high aspirations when they begin higher education. Why are these…

In order to support a new knowledge-based economy, President Obama has determined that more of the nation's population will need a college degree. While much of the research on two-year colleges has focused on public community colleges, there are a number of private, independent two-year colleges whose graduates will also contribute to a…