College-going Decisions Research Articles

“A Whole Cycle All Over Again”: The Graduate School Considerations and Plans of First-Generation Bachelor’s Students

ABSTRACT Drawing from the Model of College-Going Decisions and Trajectories, this qualitative study explores how time, opportunity, and information shaped 17 first-generation college students’ (FGCSs) prospective plans for participating graduate school. Findings illustrate the bidirectional relationship of career aspirations and graduate school plans, with lengthy graduate requirements deterring career interest. In planning for graduate school, FGCS participants enacted multiple strategies to reduce overall postsecondary costs and maintain academic eligibility, despite structural barriers. Finally, participants experienced delays — both anticipated and unanticipated — in their prospective timelines for attending graduate school. Findings reveal systems that may disproportionately inhibit FGCSs’ graduate school interest and eligibility, with implications for career opportunity.

The Broken Yellow Brick Road: A Narrative Exploration of the College-Going Decisions and Trajectory of a Low-Income Single Mother of Color

Communities frequently treated as ‘have-nots’ in higher education are a window into the condition of postsecondary education access, exclusion, inequities, and outcomes. This reality is no more evident than with the college-going trajectories of low-income single mothers of color. Evoking the possibilities of narrative inquiry in general, and life history method in particular, the author explores the college-going ecology, decisions, and trajectory of a 35-year-old low-income Filipina single mother. Through this empirical undertaking, particular attention is paid to the challenges present within the informant’s context of information, time, and opportunity—the three dimensions of the Iloh Model of College-Going Decisions and Trajectories. Findings of this narrative include prolonged and disjointed experiences; poor navigational structures and asymmetries of information; and institutional constraints, barriers, and disregard. In addition to insights that reflect decision-making challenges and buyer’s remorse of minoritized students; this study situates new directions for addressing concerning contexts of time, information, and opportunity for single mothers pursuing college.

Effect of SMS on Nudging Young People’s College-Going Decisions and Behaviors: Evidence from a College Access Program in the United States

Effect of SMS on Nudging Young People’s College-Going Decisions and Behaviors: Evidence from a College Access Program in the United States

Toward a New Model of College “choice” For a Twenty-first-century Context

The past two decades have seen massive changes in the higher education landscape, including the heightened participation of post-traditional students, high reentry and mobility of students within and across sectors, and the increased visibility of open admissions institutions, such as community colleges and for-profit colleges. Despite these radical shifts, the most commonly used college choice frameworks still focus on the decisions of students who fit a stereotypical profile and are entering traditional institutions of higher learning for the first time. In this article, Constance Iloh argues for the necessity of a new conceptual approach and offers a three-component ecological model of college-going decisions and trajectories that incorporates the pressing conditions and shifting contexts of twenty-first-century postsecondary education. In doing so, Iloh also asserts that the concept of “choice” may be a limited and problematic way of understanding present-day college-going.ErrataThe Editorial Board of the Harvard Educational Review is issuing an errata statement in conjunction with “Toward a New Model of College ‘Choice’ for a Twenty-First-Century Context” (Volume 88, Number 2, pages 227-244, doi:10.17763/1943-5045-88.2.227), by Constance Iloh, due to multiple instances in which the author incompletely attributed previously published material in the introduction and literature review. Given these extensive citation errors, the Editorial Board felt it important to correct the scholarly record. Pages 228-232 of the published article contain the following incompletely attributed materials: Excerpt lacking quotation marks from Heil, S., Reisel, L., & Attewell, P. (2014). College selectivity and degree completion. American Educational Research Journal, 51(5), 913-935. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831214544298Excerpt lacking quotation marks from Cabrera, A. F., & La Nasa, S. M. (2002). Understanding the college-choice process. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2000(107), 5-22. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ir.10701Two excerpts lacking quotation marks from Niu, S. X., Tienda, M., & Cortes, K. (2006). College selectivity and the Texas top 10% law. Economics of Education Review, 25(3), 259-272. doi:10.1016/j.econedurev.2005.02.006Excerpt lacking quotation marks from Cabrera, A. F., & La Nasa, S. M. (2000). Understanding the college-choice process. In A. F. Cabrera & S. M. La Nasa (Eds.), Understanding the college choice of disadvantaged students: New directions for institutional research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Excerpt lacking quotation marks from Chen, J. C. (2017). Nontraditional adult learners. SAGE Open, 7(1). doi:10.1177/2158244017697161Quote lacking quotation marks and citation from Robert Hansen, CEO of University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) as reported in Inside Track. (2015). National study of non-first-time students shows full-time enrollment may not be appropriate for all. Retrieved from https://www.insidetrack.com/national-study-of-non-first-time-students-shows-full-time-enrollment-may-not-be-appropriate-for-all/Excerpt lacking quotation marks and citation from Bidwell, A. (2014, July 29). 31 million in higher education limbo: Some college, no degree. US News & World Report. Retrieved from https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/07/29/31-million-in-higher-education-limbo-some-college-no-degreeExcerpt lacking quotation marks from Tudge, J. R. H. (2008). The everyday lives of young children: Culture, class, and child rearing in diverse societies. New York: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/ CBO9780511499890

A New Model of College Choice for Distance Learners

The expansion and diversification of postsecondary education in the United States has led to greater options for students and prospective students for pursuing a college degree. With the roll out and scale up of sophisticated education technology systems, an important trend in higher education today is distance education. Despite the growing prevalence of distance learning opportunities and the expanding body of research on distance education, research on the college-going decisions of distance learners is sparse. As more students enroll in distance-based postsecondary education programs, it is increasingly important to understand how and why students make the decision to enroll in collegiate degree-granting programs. This study bridges the college choice and distance education literatures to posit a new model of college choice to shed light on students’ decisions to enroll in a distance-based, nontraditional degree program.

Diversion or Democratization

This study examines the relationship between academic undermatch theory and the college-going decisions, experiences, and aspirations of first-generation, rural Hispanic community college students in the new destination meatpacking town of Winstead, Kansas. Ethnographic data from rural high school guidance counselors, community college faculty, and students suggest a need to emend the theory to address dynamic contextual factors such as proximity to home, familismo, place attachments, social networks, geographic location, sense of belonging, and academic validation.

The Impact of Test Score Labels on Human-Capital Investment Decisions

Students receive abundant information about their educational performance, but how this information affects future educational-investment decisions is not well understood. Increasingly, results from state-mandated standardized tests are an important source of information. Students receive a score and a label that summarizes their performance on these tests. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we find persistent effects of earning a more positive label on the college-going decisions of urban, low-income students. These findings are important not only for understanding students’ educational-investment decisions and the consequences of state testing practices but also for researchers using the regression-discontinuity design.

Why Izzie Didn't Go to College: Choosing Work over College as Latina Feminism

Background/ContextExplanations for the relatively low numbers of Latinas pursuing higher education have tended to focus on socialization into traditional gender roles. However, recent scholarship has challenged this view, suggesting that gender roles—partic-ularly among recent immigrants—are mutable and subject to constant renegotiation.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of StudyThis article suggests that forgoing college, far from representing a retreat into traditional women's roles, might in some cases represent emergent feminism and a means for Latina immigrants to contest and reshape those roles.SettingA new Latino diaspora community in the rural southeastern United States.Research DesignLongitudinal qualitative case study of an adolescent immigrant Latina.Findings/ResultsBoth risk factors and facilitative factors previously identified by research as contributing to Latino/a college enrollment were found to be present in the case study student's background. The article argues, however, that some gender-specific factors often used to explain Latina school-leaving and low academic ambitions, such as close association with teenage mothers and responsibilities for household chores and child care, served instead as deterrents for this Latina adolescent from taking traditional gender roles. On the other hand, the article argues that the association between higher education and increased independence and a break from traditional gender roles that is often assumed for American-born women did not hold for a working-class Latina. Rather, her wage-earning represented a better position from which to challenge traditional gender roles within her family.Conclusions/RecommendationsThis case study confirms the heterogeneity and diversity to be found in the individual schooling paths of Latino/a immigrant youth, and thus the value of close examination of the protracted and as yet little understood process through which Latinas/os make the decision to pursue or forgo higher education over the course of high school. The article lends support to arguments in recent scholarship suggesting the mutability of gender roles in immigrant communities. It suggests that new attention be paid in research and college recruitment programs to growing evidence of gender-specific factors at work in Latino/a immigrant students’ academic achievement and college-going decisions.

If Not Welfare, Then What?: How Single Mothers Finance College Post-Welfare Reform

The article follows previous work on TANF and AFDC by asking if not welfare, then what social programs and financial aid programs are low-income women using to support their college attendance, and what is the impact of these programs on the college-going decisions of low-income women? The study is based on case studies of 10 low-income women attending a community college. Results indicated that EITC, food stamps, and subsidized housing are stable sources of funding. However, each of these programs requires different application processes and compliance regulations. Only the Pell Grant was viewed as a dependable source of funding for college costs. Participants expressed confusion and frustration over the many varying regulations amongst programs.

Peer Influences on the College-Going Decisions of Low Socioeconomic Status Urban Youth

The roles that peers play in the decision to go to college are not well understood. Logistic regression is used to explore the role that peers play in the college-going decisions of a sample of low-income urban minority public high school graduates drawn from the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS:88) database. Friends’ plans are found to be the single best predictor of 4-year college enrollment for these low-income urban minority students, even when controlling for variables traditionally assumed to affect college going. These peer variables are stronger predictors of 4-year college-going behavior for this group than they are for a comparison sample of all U.S. high school graduates. These data are important for the formation of policies to improve all levels of college access programming.

The Role of Postsecondary Education in Welfare Recipients' Paths to Self-Sufficiency

The effectiveness of higher education as a route into self-sustaining employment has been demonstrated by decades of educational and economic research. Despite this, recent policy changes at the federal level have led to a widespread denial of access to postsecondary education for welfare recipients, arguably one of the most economically disadvantaged groups in society. Participants in the recently created Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program--implemented as part of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act--are strongly discouraged by requirements set out in federal law from pursuing postsecondary education as a route out of poverty. Instead, shorter-term options such as immediate job search, vocational training that lasts a year or less, and subsidized or unsubsidized employment are among the activities available to assist low-income parents transition to self-sufficiency. In limiting postsecondary educational options to welfare recipients. TANF legislates some of the biases already inherent in societal institutions that steer disadvantaged and minority young women away from higher education. Research has shown that young people with lower socioeconomic status have worse educational outcomes, including lower rates of college attendance and graduation (Bainbridge & Lesley, 2002; Haycock, 2001; Sewell & Shah, 1967). Among those with low socioeconomic status, minority students in particular tend to have lower aspirations for college (Kao & Tienda, 1998). This may disproportionately affect young women, whose socioeconomic status has been shown to be even more important in their college-going decisions than intelligence (Sewell & Shah, 1967). Higher socioeconomic status students' comparatively better educational outcomes are due, in part, to both their more highly educated parents (Haveman, Wolfe, & Spaulding, 1991; Sewell & Shah, 1968) and the higher per-pupil expenditures in their schools (Elliott, 1998). Practices within schools themselves, such as tracking, dissuade some high school students, particularly those with low socioeconomic status and minority backgrounds, from attending college (Rosenbaum, 1976, 1980). Even efforts to de-track schools face hurdles in overcoming long-held attitudes about racial differences, social stratification, and intelligence (Oakes & Wells, 1998). Because welfare recipients disproportionately stem from low socioeconomic status families and minority backgrounds, they would face considerable challenges in pursuing postsecondary degrees, even in the absence of TANF regulations. TANF's anti-higher education stance has the potential to affect both welfare recipients and their children. Research has shown that mother's educational attainment is strongly linked to children's educational achievement (Haveman et al., 1991; Sewell & Shah, 1968). The effects of this policy may reverberate for generations to come. Welfare recipients are not all equally prepared for higher education and, as has been discussed for high school students (Rosenbaum & Person, 2003), should not be universally encouraged to attend. Barriers to employment such as mental health and substance abuse problems, low literacy, and learning disabilities are pervasive among the welfare population (Turner, Danziger & Seefeldt, 2004) and may place postsecondary education out of the immediate reach of a sizeable proportion of welfare recipients. Still, access to higher education can provide a second chance for some women on welfare, particularly the 44% of recipients who had their first child as a teenager (Wertheimer & Moore, 1998). Early parenthood has been shown to have negative effects on educational attainment for women (Ahituv & Tienda, 2004; Marini, 1984) and TANF provides another layer of discouragement for welfare recipients. Research is suggestive of improved outcomes for welfare recipients who attend college while on aid, but few studies have addressed this issue specifically. …

School heterogeneity, human capital accumulation, and standards

This paper examines the effects of heterogeneity in school quality on high school wages, college enrolment rates and social surplus. Greater heterogeneity in school quality, combined with pooling on the labor market for high school graduates, is shown to result in lower average high school wages, inefficient college-going decisions, and, in some cases, lower social surplus. These effects of heterogeneity tend to be reinforced by technical change which raises the return to human capital. Technical change leads to bigger increases in the college-high school wage ratio when there is more underlying heterogeneity in the school system. Performance standards implemented through the mandatory testing of all high school graduates are shown to raise average high school wages and social surplus by reducing the distortion in college-going incentives.

Have Efforts to Improve Higher Education Opportunities for Low-Income Youth Succeeded?

There has been increasing public concern about whether financial aid programs enable low-income youth to pursue college education. This study identifies overall changes in college-going behavior before and after the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant program. It finds that federal efforts to increase college access have been constrained by a heavy reliance on test scores in college admissions decisions. The analysis is based on college-going decisions of the 12,099 high school graduates who participated in the 1982 High School and Beyond Survey.

College-Going Decisions by Chicanos: The Politics of Misinformation

Even as California increases the presence of Latino students in its public university systems, the net college-going rates for the group have fallen off markedly. To understand the decision process, this study examines Chicano students in one large high school. In particular, the effect of cost on demand was sought by using a survey of graduating seniors. Logistic regressions on college plans revealed differential effects of estimated cost, depending on ethnicity and language background. For the children of Spanish-speaking parents, costs were largely determinant of college plans, whereas they were not for the children of English speakers. Significantly, it was the children of Spanish speakers who had the highest and most unrealistic estimates of college tuition.

College-Going Decisions by Chicanos: The Politics of Misinformation

College-Going Decisions by Chicanos: The Politics of Misinformation

Did college choice change during the seventies?

Despite steady growth in enrollment and several external shocks to the US higher-education system, the college-going decisions of high-school graduates in 1980 depended on their social, academic, and financial attributes much as they did in 1972. Analyses of two large, national, longitudinal surveys underlie this finding. The finding implies that aggregate patterns among traditional students' decisions about higher education are, like the social fabric, remarkably resistant to modest changes in the social-policy environment, even though such changes may have dramatic effects on financial and social equity.