College Degree Completion Research Articles

Path Analysis of Effects of First-Generation Status on Physical Activity and 4-Year College Degree Completion

ABSTRACT Purpose First-generation college students (FGCS) face a myriad of sociocultural, financial, and emotional challenges that impact their educational journey. With less academic capital and lower odds of obtaining a bachelor’s degree than their non-FGCS peers, understanding the factors affecting their academic success is pivotal for social work professionals aiming to provide tailored interventions and support systems. This study delved into the potential differences between these groups concerning physical activities, which are linked to learning, cognition, and overall well-being, and evaluated their influence on degree completion. Method A path model was developed to analyze the relationship between degree completion, physical activities, FGCS status, and background variables, using a sample of 1,625 participants. Results The model showed a strong fit (CFI = 0.979, RMSEA = 0.055, SRMR = 0.010) and accounted for 29.5% of the variance in degree completion. Walking to school was positively associated with degree attainment. FGCS status was associated with decreased walking to school, reduced degree completion, and increased walking for exercise. An indirect effect suggested that FGCS were less likely to achieve their degree, potentially due to a greater reliance on transportation like buses or cars. Discussion The findings emphasize the critical role of campus resources for FGCS. Enhancing access to fitness centers and offering affordable housing options nearer to campus may aid FGCSs’ academic success. These insights can guide social work practices, highlighting the importance of environmental factors in the academic experiences of FGCS.

College Success Requires Attention to the Whole Student

Annually, nearly 20% of first-time, degree-seeking college students do not return after the first year. There are a variety of factors that impact a student’s ability to remain in college, including social and emotional factors, as well as institutional, structural and financial barriers. Due to the economic and employment advantage of a college degree, it is important to offer a variety of supports for students, in order to facilitate student persistence and college degree completion. This study examined the theoretical assumption that college student persistence and degree completion is influenced by individual wellness practices across a number of life domains: physical, social, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual. Undergraduate college students (n=266) completed an online survey in May, 2021 to examine the relationship between these five life domains and student persistence in college. Results indicate that four of the five life domains are predictive of student persistence in college. Spiritual wellness was not directly predictive of student persistence, but was significantly associated with social and academic factors that do influence student persistence. Recommendations for the higher education system are suggested for improvement of student persistence and degree completion.

Long-term prognosis and educational determinants of brain network decline in older adult individuals

Older adults with lower education are at greater risk for dementia. It is unclear which brain changes lead to these outcomes. Longitudinal imaging-based measures of brain structure and function were examined in adult individuals (baseline age, 45–86 years; two to five visits per participant over 1–9 years). College degree completion differentiates individual-based and neighborhood-based measures of socioeconomic status and disadvantage. Older adults (~65 years and over) without a college degree exhibit a pattern of declining large-scale functional brain network organization (resting-state system segregation) that is less evident in their college-educated peers. Declining brain system segregation predicts impending changes in dementia severity, measured up to 10 years past the last scan date. The prognostic value of brain network change is independent of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)-related genetic risk (APOE status), the presence of AD-associated pathology (cerebrospinal fluid phosphorylated tau, cortical amyloid) and cortical thinning. These results demonstrate that the trajectory of an individual’s brain network organization varies in relation to their educational attainment and, more broadly, is a unique indicator of individual brain health during older age.

Immigrant and international college students’ learning gaps: Improving academic and sociocultural readiness for career and graduate/professional education

The learning gaps of immigrant and international student groups on the increase in American college campuses raise the challenges of ensuring educational equity and inclusion for minoritized students. This mixed-methods study is based on transformative education and asset model, challenging conventional deficit views about immigrant and international student groups marginalized as aliens in American colleges and universities. Quantitative analysis of the U.S. national longitudinal data reveals diverse patterns of learning gaps among these groups in which high-impact practices (HIPs) influence the chances of 4-year college degree completion with full-time job employment and graduate/professional school enrollment. Qualitative analysis of interview cases offers further insights into ecological challenges, opportunities, and strategies for recognizing immigrant and international students as assets and improving both academic and sociocultural readiness for their college success.

High School and College Choice Factors Associated with High-Achieving Low-Income Students’ College Degree Completion

Gaps in college degree completion between low-, middle-, and high-income college students are typically attributed to differences in academic preparation and ability. However, high-achieving, low-income students are still less likely to graduate from college than their high-achieving, high-income counterparts. This study explores completion rates at the end of the Great Recession, using a community cultural wealth framework to examine additional pre-college factors and college attendance behaviors that contribute to the degree completion of high-achieving, low-income students. Longitudinal data using the Freshmen Survey and National Student Clearinghouse were collected from 2004 to 2010, comparing 9300 high-achieving students entering 455 colleges from low-, middle-, and high-income backgrounds. Hierarchical linear modeling (HGLM) was used to identify student and institutional factors that predict college completion during this era. Findings indicate that navigational capital and college attendance patterns (attending a summer session, selective college, and/or private institution) are key factors for high-achieving, low-income student completion. Cultural wealth anti-deficit measures could not explain the low-income Latinx lower likelihood of college completion nor gender differences across income groups. Implications of the results address concerns regarding the COVID-19 pandemic recession in terms of what institutions can do to support students.

Educational Social Justice in Action Through the Black Male Initiative (BMI) Program

AbstractHistorically, black male students in the United States have the lowest college degree completion rate. This chapter describes the work of The Black Male Initiative (BMI) at Empire State College in NYC. Grounded in an Afrocentric paradigm, BMI provides a safe space for students to share experiences. In this chapter, the author describes the components of BMI along with challenges and successes.

Who are Rural Students? How Definitions of Rurality Affect Research on College Completion

Given a revived national discourse about rural populations, more educational research on rural students is necessary, including ways that rural students transition to college and the success (or lack thereof) that they experience once there. However, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has changed the definition of rurality used in each iterative dataset over the last few decades, casting doubt on the consistency of what is meant by the term rural. The purpose of this study is to: (a) communicate to the educational research audience various ways of defining rural students, and specifically how NCES has changed their definition of rurality over their last three major data collections; (b) demonstrate how conclusions about rural students’ and their college degree completion may differ based on these alternate NCES definitions; and (c) discuss how this specific example using NCES data relates to the wider landscape of research on rural students. Results show that conclusions about college degree completion change depending on the definition of rurality used for analysis. Therefore, the education research community should consider the options for defining rural students, report transparently about the choices made, consider the sensitivity of results to the definition of rurality, and ultimately build a more robust body of literature concerning rural students’ college success. Gaining definitional clarity will be beneficial, particularly for those who wish to translate their research into practical action for the benefit of rural students.

The influence of STEM definitions for research on women\u2019s college attainment

BackgroundPrior research has inconsistently operationalized Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields, presenting an interpretation challenge. A content analysis of 51 quantitative, gender-focused, higher education-oriented, STEM-related studies in the ERIC database published between January 2010 and July 2018 revealed that only 13 articles used an existing STEM definition. In 15, STEM was not explicitly defined, and others defined STEM independently. This wide range of definitions may lead to confusion or misrepresentation of findings for interventions and practices to support women in STEM. To illustrate the issue and prompt recommendations for future research, this study uses data from the United States National Center for Education Statistics’ Education Longitudinal Study (ELS:2002/12) to investigate the connection between STEM definition and the outcome of college degree completion, comparing results by gender for five ways of operationalizing STEM fields.ResultsWe found the size, direction, and significance of the gender gap depended on STEM operationalization. When STEM was defined as high paradigm fields, the odds of women attaining a non-STEM degree were higher than otherwise. When social science fields were included in STEM, there was no statistically significant difference by gender. When looking specifically at fields considered related to science and engineering, the direction of the relationship was reversed.ConclusionWhile our findings follow expectations about social science fields and gender, it is noteworthy that results regarding STEM degree completion by gender for science and engineering-related fields were opposite those of high paradigm STEM fields. This result highlights that the definition of STEM matters, and inconsistent operationalization in the literature presents an interpretation challenge. We argue the field should strive to find common categorizations of STEM that retain the legitimate variation in how STEM can and should be defined, while providing a basis for consistent comparison. We recommend researchers and practitioners developing research-based practices: 1) interpret research findings understanding potential inconsistency from different STEM operationalizations, 2) explicitly describe STEM operational definitions to enable comparing findings, 3) routinely analyze sensitivity to alternate STEM definitions, and 4) find common STEM categorizations that retain legitimate variation while providing a basis for consistent comparison.

Gender Gaps in Math Performance, Perceived Mathematical Ability and College STEM Education: The Role of Parental Occupation

Employment opportunities in occupations related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, the so-called STEM fields, are predicted to continue growing through time. In addition, STEM occupations also enjoy higher wages on average. Despite these advantages, women remain under-represented in STEM college degree completion and occupations. Encouraging women into the STEM fields has become an important policy concern. We use longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to study gender differences in math achievement and self-perceived math ability and how they may differ by parental occupation type, specifically science related versus non-science related parental occupations. We then study their role on subsequent decision of majoring in a science field in college. Our results corroborate significant gender differences in math test scores and perceived math ability during childhood. Having a parent working in a science related field is associated with a better performance in math but not necessarily higher levels of perceived math ability, given math performance. All three factors, math achievement, perceived math ability, and parental occupation in a science field, are found to be significant predictors of the probability of majoring in science in college. However, estimated effects of higher levels of math achievement are about double for boys than for girls. Estimates of perceived math ability are also slightly larger for boys. In contrast, most of the observed positive effects of having a parent in a science related occupation seem to be concentrated among females. These results suggest a loss in STEM enrollment by otherwise qualified young women and the potential importance that parental role modeling effects or specific human capital parental investments by parents in science occupations could have for encouraging women to major in science fields.

RETRACTED: Investigating the effects of medical marijuana laws on educational attainment

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).This article has been retracted at the request of the authors. The main set of results appeared earlier in a paper by Plunk et al (2016), that should have been cited. Both papers use similar methods and reach the same conclusions using different data:“The impact of adolescent exposure to medical marijuana laws on high school completion, college enrollment and college degree completion” by Andrew D. Plunk, Arpana Agrawal, Paul T. Harrell, William F. Tate, Kelli England Will, Jennifer M. Mellor and Richard A. Grucza. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 168 (2016) 320–327. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.09.002

Return to Algebra II: The Effect of Mandatory Math Coursework on Postsecondary Attainment

Using detailed transcript data from multiple cohorts in Michigan, this paper studies the long-run impacts of mandatory Algebra II-taking on college outcomes. I use the fraction of Algebra II-takers in a school before the mandatory coursework policy was implemented to identify policy-induced variations in the propensity to take Algebra II. I find significant positive impacts on the probability of enrollment in both 2-year and 4-year colleges for minority and disadvantaged students and on college degree completion rates for advantaged compliers. I also show a sizable impact on the likelihood of majoring in a STEM field among students from advantaged backgrounds.

Understanding graduation rates at higher education institutions: A forecasting model

Graduation rates and degree completion have always been a concern for students, students’ families and universities. Moreover, many consider college degree completion rates to be among one of the most important indicators of institutional quality according to a report from the Higher Education Research Institute published in the United States of America. This research studied factors that can explain graduation rates which include student‐faculty ratio, financial factors, and enrollment status. Data was collected and analyzed for state and private universities, and a Multiple Regression Model (MLR) was built to forecast graduation rates. The model was able to highlight variables that significantly relate to graduation rates. Researchers can use this article to understand the different factors that correlate with degree completion and to forecast graduations rates at Higher Education Institutions. The international researcher can explore replicating the forecasting model at universities outside the United States of America.

The impact of adolescent exposure to medical marijuana laws on high school completion, college enrollment and college degree completion

BackgroundThere is concern that medical marijuana laws (MMLs) could negatively affect adolescents. To better understand these policies, we assess how adolescent exposure to MMLs is related to educational attainment. MethodsData from the 2000 Census and 2001–2014 American Community Surveys were restricted to individuals who were of high school age (14–18) between 1990 and 2012 (n=5,483,715). MML exposure was coded as: (i) a dichotomous “any MML” indicator, and (ii) number of years of high school age exposure. We used logistic regression to model whether MMLs affected: (a) completing high school by age 19; (b) beginning college, irrespective of completion; and (c) obtaining any degree after beginning college. A similar dataset based on the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) was also constructed for confirmatory analyses assessing marijuana use. ResultsMMLs were associated with a 0.40 percentage point increase in the probability of not earning a high school diploma or GED after completing the 12th grade (from 3.99% to 4.39%). High school MML exposure was also associated with a 1.84 and 0.85 percentage point increase in the probability of college non-enrollment and degree non-completion, respectively (from 31.12% to 32.96% and 45.30% to 46.15%, respectively). Years of MML exposure exhibited a consistent dose response relationship for all outcomes. MMLs were also associated with 0.85 percentage point increase in daily marijuana use among 12th graders (up from 1.26%). ConclusionsMedical marijuana law exposure between age 14 to 18 likely has a delayed effect on use and education that persists over time.

Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Childhood Investments on Postsecondary Attainment and Degree Completion

AbstractThis paper examines the effect of early childhood investments on college enrollment and degree completion. We used the random assignment in Project STAR (the Tennessee Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio experiment) to estimate the effect of smaller classes in primary school on college entry, college choice, and degree completion. We improve on existing work in this area with unusually detailed data on college enrollment spells and the previously unexplored outcome of college degree completion. We found that assignment to a small class increases students’ probability of attending college by 2.7 percentage points, with effects more than twice as large among black students. Among students enrolled in the poorest third of schools, the effect is 7.3 percentage points. Smaller classes increased the likelihood of earning a college degree by 1.6 percentage points and shifted students toward high‐earning fields such as STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), business, and economics. We found that test‐score effects at the time of the experiment were an excellent predictor of long‐term improvements in postsecondary outcomes.

Adolescent Obesity and Future College Degree Attainment

The current impact of adolescent obesity on educational attainment is not clear. The objectives of our study were to determine whether adolescent obesity is associated with college degree attainment and how this association may have changed over time. We used data from a contemporary national cohort of over 4,000 persons who were adolescents (aged 14-18) in 1997 to assess the relationship between adolescent obesity and education. To assess for changes in this relationship over time, we also analyzed an older, similarly structured cohort of over 3,000 persons who were adolescents (aged 16-18) in 1981. Our primary outcome was college degree completion. We found that in the older cohort (adolescents in 1979), there were no differences in college degree attainment by adolescent weight status before and after adjustment. However, unadjusted analysis of the contemporary cohort (adolescents in 1997) demonstrated that those who were normal weight as adolescents had a higher prevalence of college degree attainment at follow-up compared to obese adolescents (24% vs. 10%). After adjustment for socio-demographic variables (age, sex, race, height, parental income-to-poverty ratio, parental education, aptitude test scores), obese adolescents were less likely to have attained a college degree compared to normal weight peers (adjusted risk ratio 0.61 95% confidence interval 0.38-0.83). Expectations for a future college degree did not vary by weight status and did not explain this observation. In conclusion, adolescent obesity is associated with lower likelihood of college completion. This relationship was not observed in an older cohort of adolescents.

Understanding college degree completion of students with low socioeconomic status: The Influence of the Institutional Financial Context

Using national survey data, multilevel modeling techniques, and descriptive statistics, this study makes an effort to understand the influence of the financial context of institutions on the chance of college completion for low socioeconomic status (SES) students at four-year colleges and universities. This research shows that college completion is positively associated with an institution’s tuition revenue as a percent of total revenue and educational and general expenditures per full-time equivalent student. This study also documents that, compared to high SES students, low SES students are disproportionately enrolled in institutions with lower levels of financial resources and higher dependence on tuition as a source of total revenue. The results of this research have implications for policy with regard to addressing the chances of college completion for low SES students.

Beyond Intent: Reentering College to Complete the Degree

This paper proposes a descriptive model illustrating the path of adult problem solving and thinking that leads to reentry, retention, and eventual completion of a college degree. Each stage of the model represents a unique decision point at which action may or may not be taken to achieve the goal of college degree completion. Variables depicting the outcome of each decision point are identified. Intrinsic and extrinsic facilitators and inhibitors to degree completion, theories of motivation, and persistence are explored. The educational program options available to adult learners in the 1990s, the types of choices adults make in the process of reentering higher education, and relevant extant theory contribute to the proposed model. A discussion of implication for policy development that would encourage adult reentry and degree completion is included.

Beyond Intent: Reentering College to Complete the Degree

This paper proposes a descriptive model illustrating the path of adult problem solving and thinking that leads to reentry, retention, and eventual completion of a college degree. Each stage of the model represents a unique decision point at which action may or may not be taken to achieve the goal of college degree completion. Variables depicting the outcome of each decision point are identified. Intrinsic and extrinsic facilitators and inhibitors to degree completion, theories of motivation, and persistence are explored. The educational program options available to adult learners in the 1990s, the types of choices adults make in the process of reentering higher education, and relevant extant theory contribute to the proposed model. A discussion of implication for policy development that would encourage adult reentry and degree completion is included.