The Caribbean University's Pre-College Program (PCP) served as the conduit for the nation's academically underprepared high school graduates to matriculate to university and earn a degree. The PCP student enrollment increased annually since 2010; however, less than 70% of the total PCP students matriculated to an associate degree. Without a formal program evaluation, the empirical evidence into the factors that influenced PCP students' progress remained unknown. The purpose of this participatory-summative logic outcomes program evaluation was to measure stakeholders' perspectives of the ways in which the PCP's purpose, structure, and outcomes were manifested in the practices at the Caribbean University. A purposeful sample of 9 PCP students from the 2010 to 2015 PCP cohorts volunteered and received a 31-item Likert-scale College Persistence Questionnaire (CPQ) on-line survey to garner insights into the factors influencing the PCP learners' outcomes. Nine PCP faculty members and the deputy registrar completed separate versions of an online questionnaire. The PCP students' responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The open-ended responses were coded and analyzed. The PCP faculty members and deputy registrar's open-ended responses were coded, and thematically analyzed. Participants' responses identified institutional, curricular, and admissions criteria issues that influenced PCP students' low academic performance while supporting the PCP's program continuation. Findings and recommendations were included in an executive report for the study site. Providing the outcomes of this research to the leadership at the study site may lead to positive social change by supporting a second chance for this Caribbean nation's academically underprepared high school graduates who seek a college degree.

Each month, thousands of U.S service members are discharged from the military and are forced to make the decision of what to do with the rest of their lives. For an increasingly large percentage of such veterans, the decision that they will make will be to become full-time college students and pursue an education that will provide them with meaningful careers. Unfortunately, due to the type of constant deployment cycles that many student-veterans undergo while enlisted/commissioned, a large percentage of veterans taking part in the military-to-college transition process have received mental/physical injuries that serve as major obstacles for achieving successful transitions. Specifically, this study seeks to determine if social support, willingness towards campus communication, self-esteem, and eagerness towards social networking site usage are related to a student-veterans overall level of academic engagement. This study draws its data from a sample of 202 full-time student-veterans. Data was collected through a volunteer self-administered online questionnaire. Six sections respectively measured eagerness towards SNS (Social Networking Site) usage, academic engagement, social support, willingness towards campus communication, self-esteem, and demographic information. Data was collected from California community colleges, California State Universities institutions, University of California institutions, and California private non-for profit institutions. This study found a statistically significant positive relationship between social support, self-esteem, willingness to communicate, and academic engagement. Essentially, student-veterans who have high levels of social support/self-esteem and are willing to communicate are more likely to possess high levels of academic engagement. There was no significant relationship found between eagerness towards SNS usage and academic engagement. Moreover, this study is significant as it suggests that a student-veteran’s level of academic engagement is positively correlated to their overall level of academic engagement. Thus, maintaining strong social support networks that allow student-veterans to interact in personal and one-on-one interactions is of great importance for a student-veteran during their time in college in order to achieve their academic and professional goals.

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