Commuter Institution Research Articles

The Route to Graduation: An Exploration of the Association Between Transit Stop Proximity and Pell Recipient Completion Rates at US Commuter Colleges

This study explores the association between having a transit stop within walking distance of campus and Pell Grant recipient completion rates at US commuter institutions, using a novel dataset on transit stop locations and institutional level data. The findings indicate that there is a positive association between transit access and Pell completion rates at commuter colleges in urban environments, but not in non-urban environments, which aligns with theoretical expectations. This study is intended to bring the issue of transit access into the academic student retention conversation, future research is needed to explore the nature of this relationship in greater depth.

Hira Makes a Sound: Sustaining High-Impact AANAPISI Innovation in an Asian American Studies Environment before and beyond the COVID-19 Anti-Asian Hate Pandemic

This article first describes two high-impact, foundational examples in Asian American Studies over three decades that successfully established and sustained inclusive and equitable educational environments at an urban, public, and federally designated Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Institution (AANAPISI) research university. Secondly, the article introduces the purpose, process, and product of a fresh programmatic example of cross-generational, community-centered storytelling initiated during the contemporary dual-pandemic period of COVID-19 and anti-Asian hate. Through these examples, we argue that AANAPISIs with longstanding Asian American Studies curricular and pedagogical commitments to transformative educational praxis can offer especially valuable insights for U.S. higher education precisely because the purposeful, strategic attention to developing equitable, inclusive learning environments is so well-developed. Within our own context, we specifically highlight the impacts and importance of developing long-term ecologies to support culturally sustaining curricula and storytelling co-production processes led by core faculty with students and alumni. These examples are particularly salient for under-resourced, predominantly commuter institutions where student engagement with faculty and peers in classroom environments is so vital.

“A Hard Shuffle To Get It All Done”: Challenges Faced By Commuter Students In Historically White Sororities And Fraternities

Commuter students face a number of challenges, yet how they influence the experience of those who join sororities and fraternities is unknown. The purpose of this study is to explore those challenges, the strategies participants used to overcome them, and how policies and practices influenced their experience through interviews with eight alumni of historically White sororities and fraternities (HWSFs) that attended primarily commuter institutions. The findings suggest the participants in this study had many “typical” challenges associated with commuting, employed a variety of strategies to overcome those challenges, and were affected by chapter and national organization policies and practices over those at the campus level.

Examining Students’ Spatial Ability and Its Impact on the Learning of Stereochemistry

The subject of stereochemistry in considered a difficult concept in organic chemistry because of its dependence on spatial ability. The challenges that students face in learning about stereochemistry can lead to poor performance and alternative conceptions, which in turn might hinder their progresses in various science and engineering academic careers. Development of successful conceptual understanding to solve stereochemistry related problems requires that students have a thorough understanding of the various types of spatial abilities in stereochemistry such as mental rotation and visualization of three-dimensional chemical molecules. This research project of the City College of New York (a minority serving, public, urban, and commuter institution) investigates some of the challenges that students face and approaches that students rely on to solve stereochemistry related problems and the role of spatial ability in the learning process. Likert-type surveys, spatial ability tests, and various open-ended questions were used to assess the understandings of 86 participants. The data indicated that one of barriers to learning about stereochemistry is the students’ inabilities to mentally rotate and visualize three-dimensional molecular structures by looking at their chemical formulae, assigning priority functional groups, determining configurations, and remembering the various rules that are necessary for solving stereochemistry related questions. Spatial ability was found to be one of the factors for success in stereochemistry, and majority of the students believe that with practice and the use of three-dimensional molecular modeling kits, they can improve their spatial abilities in stereochemistry.

Building Social Capital in Higher Education With Online Opportunistic Social Matching

Recently, colleges and universities have been forced to utilize distance learning. With students spending less time on campus, their sense of community may decrease because they would be less likely to participate in the community. This puts higher education commuter institutions at a disadvantage in terms of generating and maintaining social capital. The authors investigate the possibility to counter this disadvantage by actively promoting participation in a mobile online social network (OSN) supported by a context-aware notification and recommender system (NARS) to achieve opportunistic social matching, which mitigates information overload by considering each user's relational, social, and personal context as predictors of match opportunities. The results suggest that introducing a purposefully designed OSN has the potential to facilitate the creation of structural and relational social capital, but that it might not have an effect on cognitive social capital.

Sexual and Relationship Violence Prevention and Response: What Drives the Commuter Campus Student Experience?

This exploratory study brings together two lines of inquiry on (a) college campus-based responses to sexual and intimate partner violence among students, and (b) the characteristics, experiences, and challenges unique to commuter students and commuter institutions of higher education. Using qualitative analysis of 14 in-depth interviews with campus personnel and focus groups with a total of 71 students on three commuter campuses in the Pacific Northwest, we offer a detailed description of the experiences and characteristics of commuter students as they pertain to sexual and relationship violence programming and prevention, the associated nature of commuter campus communities, and the resulting lack of visibility of the issue of sexual and relationship violence on commuter campuses. We conclude that creative, tailored approaches to prevention and response services on commuter campuses are needed to address the unique circumstances and challenges facing commuter campus students.

An Analysis of Factors Affecting Dropout Risks of Nontraditional Students: Evidence from U.S. 4-Year Commuter Institutions

Utilizing event history analysis and multilevel models, this study explored dropout risks for first-time nontraditional students who started at public 4-year commuter institutions across a U.S. Midwest state. The study revealed that (a) the dropout hazard rate remained relatively high across college years and differed by gender, race, and family income; (b) individual characteristics such as socioeconomic backgrounds, academic performance and financial need were significant predictors for dropout, and (c) the differences in dropout were largely attributable to institutional structural and resource differences. These findings have important implications for policies and practices aiming to promote nontraditional student persistence to graduation.

Student Perceptions of Institutional Care: Making Sense of Hardship Funding as a Retention Tool

This article focuses on how a financial support initiative improved student persistence at an urban commuter institution. Existing research acknowledges that financial concerns of university students may keep them from feeling connected to their institution thereby increasing the likelihood of stopping out. There is less study of how recipients of just-in-timefinancial support make sense of the award—and how those perceptions may help institutions better understand recipients’ sense of belonging. Through an exploratory qualitative research study, we contribute to the retention literature broadly and specifically to the idea of student perceptions of institutional care. We also present guiding principles for creating a successful hardship initiative that supports students financially and emotionally at their most critical time.

A Critical Race Case Analysis of Black Undergraduate Student Success at an Urban University

Presented in this article is a case study of Black students’ enrollment, persistence, and graduation at Cityville University, an urban commuter institution. We combine quantitative data from the University’s Office of Institutional Research and the U.S. Department of Education with qualitative insights gathered in interviews with students, faculty, and administrators. We then use tenets, theses, and propositions from Critical Race Theory to analyze structural problems that undermine persistence and degree completion, sense of belonging, and academic achievement for Cityville’s Black undergraduates.

Persistence in higher education through student–faculty interactions in the classroom of a commuter institution

Student–faculty interactions are a component of social integration, a key concept in Tinto’s theory of student persistence which has received empirical support. However, the influence of social integration for commuting students has been questioned. Furthermore, student–faculty interactions in the classroom are under-researched and arguably undervalued as an influence on persistence. A questionnaire (n = 248), focus groups and interviews with students including those who withdrew from higher education outline the nature of student–faculty interactions and their influence on persistence. The research supports a theoretical focus on the classroom indicating student–faculty interactions including via active teaching could reap persistence and academic benefits.

Adjustment to College in an Urban Commuter Setting

College student adjustment, success, and retention have been a focus of college administrators and student development professionals for decades. However, national college retention and graduation statistics are typically focused on traditional, residential, full-time, college populations. The purpose of the current study was to examine more closely the impact of race/ethnicity, gender, and athletic participation on the adjustment to college of 162 college freshman attending a diverse urban commuter institution. The Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ) was employed to test the impact of the three independent variables (race/ethnicity, gender, athletic participation) on the four SACQ subscales (dependent variables). Findings revealed significant Pearson correlations and multivariate analysis of variance main effects among the variables of gender and athletic participation on certain SACQ subscales. More specifically, multivariate analysis of variance main effect findings were revealed for the variables of gender on the academic adjustment and institution attachment subscales of the SACQ and for athletic participation on the social adjustment subscale of the SACQ. Implications of these findings for student services and athletics programming are discussed.

The Rise of the Commuter Student: Changing Patterns of College Attendance for Students Living at Home in the United States, 1960–1980

Background/ContextAmerican higher education witnessed rapid expansion between 1960 and 1980, as colleges and universities welcomed millions of new students. The proportion of 19- and 20-year-old students living in dormitories, rooming houses, or other group quarters fell from more than 40% to slightly less than a third. At the same time, the proportion of students in this age group living at home with one or two parents increased from about 35% to nearly 47%, becoming the largest segment of the entering collegiate population in terms of residential alternatives. While growing numbers of high school graduates each fall headed off to campus dormitories, even more enrolled in commuter institutions close to home, gaining their initial collegiate experience in circumstances that may not have differed very much from what they had experienced in secondary school. The increased numbers of commuter students, whether they attended two-year or four-year institutions, however, have received little attention from historians and other social scientists.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of StudyThis study focuses on students aged 19 and 20 who lived with parents and commuted from home during the years from 1960 to 1980, when commuters became the largest category of beginning college students. It also addresses the question of how this large-scale change affected the social and economic profile of commuter students in the United States. In this regard, this study can be considered an evaluation of policy decisions intended to widen access to postsecondary institutions. Did the growing number of students living at home represent a democratic impulse in higher education, a widening of access to include groups of students who had previously been excluded from college? The study approaches this question by examining changes in the characteristics and behavior of commuter students across the country. Recognizing the variation in enrollment rates and other educational indices by state or region, this study also focuses on how the individual behavior at the point of college entry is affected by these and other characteristics of the larger social setting, particularly from a historical perspective.Research DesignTo grasp the larger picture of historical trends in college enrollment during the period of study, particularly in the growth of commuter students, the first part of the study utilizes state-level data and identifies changes in the number of entering college students who were commuters. In the process, descriptive statistics and ordinary least squares regression are used to identify factors associated with the proportion of college students living with their parents across states. In the second stage of analysis, hierarchical generalized linear modeling, utilizing both state- and individual-level data, is used to consider different layers of contextual effects on individual decisions to enroll in college.Data Collection and AnalysisAt the individual level, the principal sources of information are from 1% Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples (IPUMS) for 1960 and 1980. These are individual-level census data that permit consideration of a wide range of variables, including college enrollment. State-level variables are drawn from the published decennial census volumes, from National Center for Education Statistics reports on the number of higher education institutions, and from aggregated IPUMS data.Conclusions/RecommendationsThis study finds that commuter students in the United States appear to have benefited from greater institutional availability, the decline of manufacturing, continued urbanization, and a general expansion of the middle class that occurred across the period in question. It was a time of growth for this sector of the collegiate population. Despite rhetoric about wider access to postsecondary education during the period, however, the nation's colleges appear to have continued to serve a relatively affluent population, even in commuter institutions. Although making postsecondary institutions accessible to commuter students may have improved access in some circumstances, for most American youth, going to college appears to have remained a solidly middle- and upper-class phenomenon.

The Influence of Parental Attachment on the College Adjustment of White, Black, and Latina/Hispanic Women: A Cross-Cultural Investigation

Although race and parental attachment are concepts that have been widely researched, few studies have explored how these variables manifest themselves among women or influence their adjustment to college. This study examined how parental attachment effected college adjustment among White, Black, and Latina/Hispanic women attending an urban commuter college. Attachment patterns were measured using the Parental Attachment Questionnaire (), and college adjustment was assessed using the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (). Results revealed that parental attachment significantly predicted aspects of college adjustment differentially for each racial subgroup. Implications regarding the experiences of diverse groups of female students attending large urban commuter institutions are discussed.

Traditional-Age Students Becoming At-Risk: Does Working Threaten College Students' Academic Success?

Using survey information from undergraduate students who work while attending two urban commuter institutions in Indiana, this study explores evidence that on average undergraduates under 21 years of age worked more than 31 hours a week while also enrolled in a full course load. The findings in this study indicate that grade point average and possibly course completion were influenced by working more hours per week.

The Health Challenges of Urban Latino College Students as Revealed Through Student Journaling

Because of the unique health risks faced by the Hispanic population and the notoriously poor health habits of college students, this study examines the health challenges faced by Latino college students enrolled at an urban commuter institution. A thematic analysis reveals the top themes for males and females as healthy eating, weight management, and exercise. Alcohol use management is a theme for males, whereas stress management is found as a theme for females.

Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter (review)

Reviewed by: Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter John M. Braxton Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter, by George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John H. Schuh, Elizabeth J. Whitt, et al.. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005. ISBN 0787982202. Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matterby George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John H. Schuh, Elizabeth J. Whitt, and associates addresses the long-standing issue of the utility of theory and research to professional practice. They address this important issue by asking what properties and conditions are common to those colleges and universities that achieve higher than predicted levels of student engagement and graduation. Put differently, the documentation of effective educational practice constituted the aim of their research project. Accordingly, they named this Project DEEP (Documenting Effective Educational Practices). Through the pursuit of this question and the effective educational practices it richly documents, this book makes an important contribution to practice and clearly demonstrates the usefulness of research to practice. For the community of scholars organized around the study of higher education, the contribution of this volume lies in its heuristic value to theory development and further research. This volume consists of four parts and 14 chapters. Part 1 includes an introductory chapter that describes the methodology used to identify a set of higher [End Page 237]performing baccalaureate-granting institutions. From this set of collegiate institutions, the Project DEEP team selected a diverse set of 20 colleges and universities: research universities, liberal arts colleges, and residential and commuter institutions. Kuh and his colleagues assert that effective educational practices can be found at a wide variety of colleges and universities. The DEEP research team conducted two visits to the campuses of the 20 selected colleges and universities, during which they reviewed documents, visited classrooms and laboratories, observed faculty and staff meetings, and talked with more than 2,700 people. Appendix A of the volume describes in greater detail the research methods used. Through the campus visits and review of pertinent documents, the DEEP research team identified six properties and conditions common at each of the 20 colleges and universities. Part 2 of this volume includes six chapters (chapters 2 through 7), each of which is devoted to one of the six attributes that foster student success. These six chapters extensively describe the focal properties and conditions used by DEEP colleges and universities. Such extensive descriptions facilitate their application by other colleges and universities. The following titles of these six properties and conditions give a general sense of their essence: "Living Mission and 'Lived' Educational Philosophy," "An Unshakable Focus on Student Learning," "Environments Adapted for Educational Enrichment," "Clear Pathways to Student Success," "An Improvement-Oriented Ethos," and "Shared Responsibility for Educational Quality and Student Success." Higher education practitioners will find the contents of these six chapters immensely valuable to practice. Part 3 of this volume consists of five chapters, a chapter devoted to each of the five clusters of effective educational practices that the DEEP team used to identify the 20 overperforming colleges and universities: academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, enriching educational experiences, and supportive campus environments. The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) encompasses each of these five clusters. These five chapters describe the policies and practices of the DEEP colleges and universities reflective of the focal cluster of educational practice. Higher education practitioners will also find the polices and practices described in each of these five chapters useful and worthy of possible implementation by their college or university. Summary and recommendations comprise Part 4 of this book, which consists of chapters 13 and 14. Chapter 13 presents some organizing principles to foster student success for use by four-year colleges and universities. These principles emerge from the six conditions and five clusters of effective practices previously described in chapters 2 through 12. These principles are arrayed into three categories: tried and true, sleepers, and fresh ideas. The category of "tried and true" consists of empirically grounded, well-known policies, practices, and institutional conditions. "Sleepers" are those policies and practices that have been proposed in the literature but that have not been the object of empirical investigation. The category of "fresh ideas...

Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter (review)

Reviewed by: Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter John M. Braxton Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John H. Schuh, Elizabeth J. Whitt, and Associates San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005, 400 pages $38.00 The usefulness of theory and research to professional practice in higher education constitutes a long-standing issue. Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter by George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John H. Schuh, Elizabeth J. Whitt, and associates addresses this issue by asking the intriguing and important question: What properties and conditions are common to those colleges and universities that achieve higher than predicted levels of student engagement and graduation? They titled this project DEEP which stands for Documenting Effective Educational Practice. Through the pursuit of this question and the richly documented effective educational practices, this book makes an important contribution to practice and clearly demonstrates the usefulness of connecting research to practice. Presidents, chief academic affairs officers, academic deans, chief student affairs officers, student affairs professionals, staff members, faculty leaders, and individual faculty members will find this volume enormously valuable to their professional practice. This volume consists of four parts and 14 chapters. Part One includes an introductory chapter. This introductory chapter describes the methodology used to identify a set of higher performing baccalaureate-granting institutions. From this set of collegiate institutions, they selected a diverse set of 20 colleges and universities: research universities, liberal arts colleges, and residential campuses, and commuter institutions. The idea here is that effective educational practices can be found at a wide variety of colleges and universities. The DEEP research team conducted two visits to the campuses of the 20 selected colleges and universities. They reviewed documents, visited classrooms and laboratories, observed faculty and staff meetings, and talked with more than 2700 people in total. The methodologies used are described in non-technical terms, though Appendix A describes in greater detail the research methods used. Through the campus visits and review of pertinent documents, the DEEP research team identified six properties and conditions common at each of the 20 DEEP colleges and universities. Part Two of this volume includes a chapter devoted to each of the six attributes that foster student success. In each of these six chapters, practices used by DEEP colleges and universities are extensively described to permit their use in other colleges and universities. The [End Page 614] following titles of these six properties and conditions give a general sense of their essence: (a) Living Mission and "Lived" Educational Philosophy, (b) An Unshakable Focus on Student Learning, (c) Environments Adapted for Educational Enrichment, (d) Clear Pathways to Student Success, (e) An Improvement-Oriented Ethos, and (f) Shared Responsibility for Educational Quality and Student Success. Higher education practitioners will find the contents of these six chapters immensely valuable to practice as Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, Whitt, and associates have greatly succeeded in their efforts to document effective educational practices. Part Three of this volume devotes a chapter to each of the five clusters of effective educational practices that the DEEP team used to identify the 20 over-performing colleges and universities. Each of these five clusters is included in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). These five chapters describe the policies and practices of the DEEP colleges and universities emblematic of the focal cluster of educational practice. Academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, enriching educational experiences, and supportive campus environments constitute these five clusters of effective educational practices. Higher education practitioners will also find the policies and practices described in each of these five chapters useful and worthy of possible implementation by their college or university. Summary and Recommendations comprise Part Four of this book. Chapter 13 presents some organizing principles to foster student success for use by four-year colleges and universities. These principles emerge from the six conditions and five clusters of effective practices previously described in chapters 2 to 12. These principles are arrayed into three categories: tried and true, sleepers, and fresh ideas. The category of tried and true consists of empirically grounded, well-know policies, practices, and institutional conditions. Sleepers are those policies and practices that have been proposed in...

Self-Efficacy, Stress, and Academic Success in College

This paper investigates the joint effects of academic self-efficacy and stress on the academic performance of 107 nontraditional, largely immigrant and minority, college freshmen at a large urban commuter institution. We developed a survey instrument to measure the level of academic self-efficacy and perceived stress associated with 27 college-related tasks. Both scales have high reliability, and they are moderately negatively correlated. We estimated structural equation models to assess the relative importance of stress and self-efficacy in predicting three academic performance outcomes: first-year college GPA, the number of accumulated credits, and college retention after the first year. The results suggest that academic self-efficacy is a more robust and consistent predictor than stress of academic success.

Understanding and Reducing College Student Departure (review)

Reviewed by: Understanding and Reducing College Student Departure MaryBeth Walpole (bio) John M. Braxton, Amy S. Hirschy, and Shedrick A. McClendon. Understanding and Reducing College Student Departure. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, Vol. 30, No. 3. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004. 128 pp. Paper: $26. ISBN: 0-7879-7282-7. Increasing student retention continues to be a pressing concern for higher education researchers, administrators, and policymakers. During the last century, nearly half of all students who enter two- and four-year colleges leave higher education without earning a degree. Moreover, students who attend community colleges or four-year commuter institutions, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and students of color are particularly vulnerable to attrition. Raising persistence levels is clearly a critical issue, and a commendable focus for the monograph Understanding and Reducing College Student Departure. Braxton, Hirschy, and McClendon build on Braxton's earlier works with several colleagues examining and critiquing Vincent Tinto's (1993) foundational theory on retention. The authors argue that Tinto's model is not well supported empirically and that, to substantially reduce attrition rates, the theory should be revised. To support their argument and build the theoretical revisions, Braxton and his colleagues draw upon quantitative research literature utilizing Tinto's model. Following a brief introduction, the authors describe Tinto's model and then review the quantitative research on retention, using the model for both residential and commuter schools. In general, they find empirical support for Tinto's concept of social integration but only modest support for his academic integration concept on residential campuses and only modest support for either social or academic integration on community college or commuter campuses. They do, however, find strong but indirect effects of academic integration in commuter institutions. Braxton and his colleagues propose revisions of Tinto's theory in two chapters (one for residential and the other for commuter students), incorporating a contextual aspect into their retention [End Page 453]theories and paying particular attention to students of color at both types of institutions. For students on residential campuses, social integration is related empirically to retention; and the authors posit that the relationship is influenced by six factors. The first two are institutional commitment to student welfare and institutional integrity. Communal potential, a student's ability to identify and form social bonds with a particular group of students, is the third factor. The fourth is a student's ability to anticipate social situations. Student involvement, termed psychosocial engagement, is the fifth factor. The sixth is the financial wherewithal students possess, referred to as ability to pay. The authors believe that two factors present potential challenges for students of color on residential campuses: ability to pay and communal potential. These students may experience difficulty in affording college and may encounter more difficulty forming social bonds with students, decreasing retention. The authors then revise Tinto's theory of retention for community colleges and commuter four-year institutions, which they combine conceptually. Braxton and his colleagues utilize 16 propositions in the revised theory for commuter institutions, incorporating aspects of Tinto's original theory, the revised residential college theory, and elements derived from research literature. These propositions are categorized according to whether the effect is generated from student entry characteristics, the student's external environment, or the campus environment. Although I commend the authors for their work in untangling the multiple influences on commuter campuses because attrition rates at these institutions are so high, the findings regarding the effects of locus of control and self-efficacy need further explanation. I also question the repeated characterization of commuter campuses as "confusing" because the authors fail to support this characterization with empirical data, as they do their other assertions. The last two sections on commuter institutions are focused on the role of academics on these campuses and implications for students of color. Retention research findings support utilizing learning communities and nontraditional pedagogical approaches because they provide increased learning opportunities and may also provide vital outlets for students to form bonds with one another. Finally, Braxton, Hirschy, and McClendon posit that students of color attending commuter institutions may be particularly vulnerable to attrition because of external environmental pressures, such as family or financial commitments. Following these theoretical revisions...

Understanding and Reducing College Student Departure (review)

Reviewed by: Understanding and Reducing College Student Departure Jillian Kinzie Understanding and Reducing College Student Departure John M. Braxton, Amy S. Hirschy, and Shederick A. McClendon San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, ASHE Higher Education Report, Volume 30, Number 3, 2003, 140 pages, $26 (softcover) Nationally, about 63% of high school graduates enroll in postsecondary education the fall after completing high school (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002). The enrollment of traditional college-age students continues at record high levels. However, far too many students who enter the higher education system fail to earn degrees. More than a quarter of students who enter four-year institutions and half of those who enter two-year schools depart at the end of their first years (Adelman, 2004). Moreover, there is a wide gap in graduation rates between low and high income students and among different racial-ethnic groups (The Education Trust, 2004). These statistics have elevated concerns about college completion rates. Although student retention has received considerable attention in higher education literature and research, the completion rate problem remains a central challenge carrying serious implications for the development of human potential, educational equity, and institutional accountability. In Understanding and Reducing College [End Page 213] Student Departure, Braxton, Hirschy and McClendon seek to further understand the completion rate problem by reviewing findings of empirical research on college student departure. They focus attention on the most widely cited student departure theory: Tinto's interactionalist theory. Through a review of empirical evidence, the authors critique Tinto's theory, formulate new models to account for student departure, and make recommendations for further scholarship on the topic. The authors also move beyond theory and into an examination of practice by reviewing exemplary institutional student retention programs. This dual focus on theory and practice is intended to further the use of research-based approaches to understanding and reducing college student departure. Chapter one introduces Tinto's theory, and then dedicates considerable attention to reviewing empirical appraisals of the validity of the theory. The robustness of the theory is first examined by institutional type, including residential commuter and liberal arts institutions, and two-year colleges. After discussing the mixed patterns of support for the theory across institutional types, the authors conclude that a serious revision to Tinto's theory is needed. In chapters two and three, the authors discuss new theoretical frameworks for residential and commuter institutions. Although the revised theory for residential colleges and universities maintains the original thrust of Tinto's concepts, the authors enhance the theory by identifying major factors that influence departure and specify six forces that foster or impede social integration in residential institutions. Because Tinto's theory lacks explanatory power in commuter institutions, the authors propose a new conceptual model of student departure for commuter colleges and universities. Sixteen propositions are advanced to form the foundation of this new theory. These chapters specify the unique contextual conditions at these institutional types, such as student entry characteristics, the external environment, the campus environment, and academic communities, and how these elements directly influence subsequent commitment to the institution or the departure decisions of students. In addition, both chapters discuss implications for racial and ethnic minority students at these institutional types. The formulation of new theories of student departure has immediate implications for practice. In chapters four and five, the authors discuss these implications and put forth recommendations for implementation. Brief descriptions of exemplary student retention programs are provided to demonstrate the promise of using research-based approaches to reduce institutional rates of departure. The final chapter returns to a discussion of research and offers specific recommendations for further scholarship on the topic. This publication offers a novel and practical approach to understanding the complex and ill-structured problem of college student departure. By providing concise reviews of the research findings that give rise to their theoretical propositions and new models, the authors present a well-organized case. Greater specification of student departure theory for residential colleges is helpful, but the generation of a new model for commuter institutions is particularly valuable given the paucity of empirical evidence for Tinto's theory at this institutional type. These new models demonstrate greater sensitivity to the unique characteristics of students...