This study examined the relationship between ten selected characteristics and persistence in different types of four-year institutions. The characteristics examined were divided into three separate clusters: personal (sex, race, religion), environmental (socioeconomic status, parents' educational level, number of children in the family), and academic (aptitude, high-school grades, size, and program). The data were extracted from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. The Carnegie classification was used to segregate four-year institutions of higher education into six major categories. Persistence in higher education was defined and examined in two different ways. In the first instance a persister was a student who enrolled in a particular institution in the fall of 1972 and graduated or continued his/her enrollment in the same type of institution according to the Carnegie classification on a full- or part-time basis through the fall of 1976. In the second instance a transfer student was defined as a student who persisted over the four-year period but moved his/her enrollment to an institution in other than the original Carnegie classification. First, data were gathered to examine the rates of student persistence. The resulting information was presented in tabular format. The second objective focused on the analysis of the relationship of the selected characteristics with persistence among and within the six classifications of institutions. The relationship of the selected characteristics and the distribution of persisting students among the six categories were analyzed. Different types of college-attendance patterns (persist, transfer, dropout) were isolated. These groups were compared using chi-square to determine significance of the comparisons. The findings were highlighted by the following statements. The recruitment and retention of black students in Research and Doctoral-Granting Universities were found ineffective. There was little difference between males and females in overall persistence rates. An association existed between religion and persistence in certain types of institutions illustrated by a strong overall persistence rate for Jewish students. High socioeconomic status students had a greater opportunity at institutional mobility by transferring into other classifications and then persisting in larger proportions than students in the low and medium range. As parental education levels increased so did the persistence rates of offspring. Aptitude and high-school grades were found strongly associated with persistence, however, different patterns were found in different institutional classifications.

This study used qualitative research, particularly life history analysis, to determine the personal pathways of success for Latino students who chose to enter a health science center for graduate study and who graduated. By giving voice to individual success stories of Latino students, some of the influences on the life pathways of these graduates were determined. For the purposes of this study, success was defined as graduation from a health science center with either a doctor of philosophy, doctor of public health or doctor of osteopathic medicine degree. Four research subjects agreed to participate in this study from a possible 11 students from the graduating class of 2004-2005 at this health science center. Data were gathered through multiple in-depth interviews of the students themselves over a period of no more than one month for each participant. Data were analyzed using the mind mapping technique and Padilla's unfolding matrix. Findings indicate that each participant traveled a different pathway to achieve educational success although similarities did exist across participants. The influences of family background, cultural background, educational background and personal perceptions and goals did affect the pathways of these four Latino graduates. While three of four participants indicated that family was the most important influence on their academic success, all participants related the importance of family to their success, although their definitions of family seemed to vary and included the concepts of education, culture, and personal perceptions and goals. The concepts of family support of education and a culture of education within the family unit emerged as similar themes among study participants. Other similarities among participants were a high academic self-concept, a strong internal locus of control, the ability to create academic community, and a positive view of potentially negative situations. Individual themes emerged from the narratives within each category for each participant. The impact of previous studies on student success, using undergraduate models, was reviewed, and one influence was found among the study participants that had not been used in previous models - health. Implications of findings from this study for educational policy, programs, and practice are discussed.

Under the George W. Bush U.S. presidential administration, the federal government pushed for greater accountability among institutions of higher education for educational outcomes. Graduation rate is a key performance indicator of institutional accountability. Previous researchers of student attrition focused primarily on the effects of student level factors on student persistence/withdrawal behavior. Recently, researchers put more focus on the effects of institutional characteristics on graduation rates, but most of these studies were exploratory and based on multiple regression models. No institutional model has existed to synthesize their results within a theoretical framework. Such an institutional model is needed to explain the process of student persistence at the institutional level. The purpose of this study was to develop a model of institutional performance in graduation rate for four-year, public and private not-for-profit, Title IV institutions in the United States. This study validated the institutional model based on the IPEDS dataset using the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. Further group comparison analyses are conducted by fitting the same SEM model to several subgroup datasets based on grouping variables such as control, geographical region and state. Benchmarking analyses were conducted to demonstrate how administrators and policy-makers can use the institutional model to compare the performance of an institution with its peers and what policy changes can they pursue to improve graduation rates.

Improving the retention and graduation of African Americans and other minority groups in higher education is an important but highly politicized issue on college and university campuses. Prior studies emphasize the relationship between minority retention and achievement, cultural diversity, and racial policies and climates at predominantly White colleges and universities in the United States. In response to the need for further research, the effects of institutional actions related to diversity, minority group and African American retention, and social integration initiatives on African American graduation rates were examined for a national sample of United States (U.S.) colleges and universities. From a potential list of 7,018 colleges and universities, 2,233 met the inclusion criteria for the study. But necessary and complete information from national directories and the census could only be found for the final sample of 1,105. After dropping 30 outliers, several multiple regression analyses identified the institutional actions, social, and demographic factors that best predicted graduation rates. Public U.S. colleges and universities located in the Midwest region had lower African American graduation rates than private colleges and universities located in the South. Higher African American graduation rates occurred in colleges and universities with Black cultural centers, higher first-year retention rates, higher women enrollment rates, a higher number of student organizations, and Division III athletic programs. Colleges and universities located in a town had higher African American graduation rates than those located in a city, suburb, or rural area.

Despite declining community college funding being allocated increasingly on the basis of student success, U.S. community college student retention and completion rates over the past decade have either remained steady or decreased, especially for Latino students. Using descriptive statistics and multiple regression models with secondary data procured from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), I analyzed student success rates—full time student retention and completion rates—based on community college financial allocations and Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) status. To equitably analyze community colleges in the sample (n = 909), I separated them into four groups based on institutional size as defined by the Carnegie Classification. Descriptive results indicated that instructional divisions spent an average of 43% of the college's total allocated budget—often more than three times the allocated budget of any other division. Regression results indicated that instructional expenditures had the most consistent impact on student success regardless of college size and that scholarship expenditures and academic support expenditures generally had a negative impact on student retention and completion rates. Regarding Latino student success in particular, findings indicated that the manner in which colleges allocated their funds impacted only small and medium-sized community colleges. Of the nine different types of institutional expenditures, only student services expenditures and public services expenditures had a statistically significant impact on Latino student success. Additionally regression analysis indicated that community college HSI status did not have a large impact on overall full-time student retention and completion rates but did have a significant impact on full-time Hispanic student retention and completion rates for all institution sizes. Findings of this study confirmed that HSI status does impact Latino student success in public community colleges. This finding is consistent with prior studies on the positive impact of instructional expenditures on student success rates. Further research on the specific elements within these expenditure areas is needed to capture how or why they are having this impact on student success. Current and prospective Latino students and their parents seeking to identify higher education institutions conducive to students' academic success should be aware of such findings as they conduct the college search process.