A Meta-Analysis of Graduate School Enrollment from Students in the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Program

Rachel Renbarger,Alexander Beaujean

doi:10.3390/educsci10010016

Abstract

The Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program provides higher education institutions with federal funds to increase the doctoral attainment for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. We conducted a meta-analysis of the impact of the McNair program on graduate program enrollment. After an exhaustive literature search, we found 7 publications containing 13 studies that met the inclusion criteria. From these studies, we found that McNair program students were almost six times as likely to enroll in a graduate program as the comparison group. Nonetheless, there was much unexplained variability in effects across studies.

Highlights

Graduate students in the United States have not been a diverse group of individuals, largely favoring those with privileged backgrounds [1,2,3,4,5]
This inequity in graduate education is problematic because individuals who could succeed in post-graduate work are denied access because they are not provided the “rules of the game” for graduate admission and matriculation [8], such as knowing how to apply to graduate schools [9]
We examined the number of studies we would have to add to reduce either (a) the average effect size (ES) by half [74] or (b) reduce the significance level to 0.05 [75]

Summary

Introduction

Graduate students in the United States have not been a diverse group of individuals, largely favoring those with privileged backgrounds [1,2,3,4,5]. There are disparities by income group; 14% of individuals from the lowest income group have obtained a bachelor’s degree or above while 60% of students from high-income households have achieved this level of education [7] This inequity in graduate education is problematic because individuals who could succeed in post-graduate work are denied access because they are not provided the “rules of the game” for graduate admission and matriculation [8], such as knowing how to apply to graduate schools [9]. Students from these groups may face issues with finances [10]. Students from certain backgrounds, such as those from low-income or racial/ethnic minority households, are not represented in graduate programs in the United States, demonstrating inequity in graduate degree attainment

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Discussion

Conclusion