Degree completion is an issue for stakeholders and others concerned with higher education (Astin, 1997; Braxton, 2000; Porter & National Institute of Independent Colleges and Universities, 1990; Selingo, 2001). The research on degree completion in American higher education is extensive. Studies have been conducted on differences in degree completion by demographics (Pascarella, Smart, & Stoecker, 1989; Pritchard & Wilson, 2003), high school performance (Lewallen, 1993; Stage & Rushin, 1993; Tracey & Sedlacek, 1987), and college performance (DesJardins, Ahlburg, & McCall, 2002; Hu & St John, 2001; Tinto, 1997). Other work in higher education however has looked at how to classify students using student types. Astin developed one of these approaches. Despite the voluminous research conducted on persistence, no one has examined the issue of degree completion using Astin's (1993) student typology. The purpose of this study was to explore degree completion among college students. It employed Astin's (1993) student typology to explore differences between degree completers and dropouts. Specifically, it examined differences between degree completers and dropouts within and across Astin types by demographic characteristics, high school academic performance, and college academic performance. The data analyzed in the study were collected from entering freshmen, by cohort, from 1994 to 1997 at three different institutions: a public master's institution in the northeast; a private liberal arts institution in the northeast; and, a public research extensive institution in the mid-Atlantic. There were two sets of data employed in the study. The first set included responses to the Annual Freshman Survey (AFS) of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) (Sax, Lindholm, Astin, Korn, & Mahoney, 2002). The second set included institutional student data records consisting of demographic characteristics of participants and high school and college performance measures. This study examined degree completion among college students using Astin's (1993) student typology framework. The results of this research contributed to the existing body of literature on degree completion. This study was complex and yielded a mix of statistically significant findings. However, four key findings emerged from this study. First, degree completers are more likely to earn better high school grades than dropouts. Second, middle and high-income students are more likely to graduate from college than low-income students. Third, for Status Striver type students, other (non-academic) background variables predict college academic performance in terms of college GPA and total college credits. Fourth, for Social Activist type students, other (non-academic) background variables predict grades earned in college. These findings present a new direction for research on degree completion and research-based student typologies. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of students, administrators, and faculty of one community college on the factors that facilitate or inhibit collegiate student success toward associate degree completion. Degree completion was defined as graduating with an associate degree. The following research questions guided this study: 1) What support systems or resources are in place at the community college to assist students with degree completion? 2) What factors in the college student success course at this community college facilitate or inhibit successful degree completion? The case study was conducted in a single community college inNorth Carolina. Participants included 10 community college professionals and 5 students. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews and then transcribed. Pseudonyms were used to maintain participant anonymity. The data were analyzed through the process of coding. Findings identified eight themes in relation to facilitating and inhibiting degree completion at the community college level. These themes were: (a) curriculum, (b) advising, (c) support services, (d) relationships, (e) faculty status, (f) intrinsic motivation, (g) developmental courses, and (h) external factors. Conclusions of the research study and recommendations for further research were determined.

The ubiquitous roadblocks to university graduation have been investigated, identified, and interrogated for 7 decades, yet the mystery of retaining students to graduation continues to elude even the most prestigious universities. This researcher’s approach to increasing graduation began with the concession that increasingly, students may leave school at some point due to one or more of the retention issues that we recognize all too well—finances, illness, family problems, pregnancies, and other educational obstacles. However, leaving school does not mean that there is no going back. Student’s dropout status changes when they re-enroll in school; they take on new identities as stop-out students who forge their own nontraditional path to graduation. This work explored the lived experiences of this often-overlooked subset of university students—students who begin courses in higher education but then forgo their studies for a time before returning. These students are known in the literature as stop-out students, a cohort seldom acknowledged, studied, or desegregated from dropout statistics. An online survey was used to determine the demographics of the stop-out participants, and face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were then conducted to allow students to relate their experiences, in and out of school, in their own voices. Of particular interest was the effect of students’ perceived connections to faculty, staff, and/or administration as an influence in their decisions to return to school. The study was analyzed through the lens of care theory as a way to investigate how students’ persistence was affected by feelings of connection or caring. Only one of twelve interviewees had formed a relationship with a professor before he left school, and this relationship was maintained during his absence and renewed when he returned. The other interviewees acknowledged that they felt no specific connections to any person, office, or administration when they left. The stop-out population is one that higher education needs to acknowledge and support with targeted services. In many cases, they are only a few semesters from graduation. Rather than blocking their way when they run for the hills, we should be lighting their path back to success.

Statement of the Problem The national six-year graduation rate is less than 60 percent. This alarming yet consistent feature of higher education has led researchers like Bean (1980), Tinto (1975, 1993), Astin (1993), Adelman (1999), Braxton (2000) and DesJardins (2002) to create a body of research which attempts to explain the causes of student attrition and suggest possible interventions. Learning Communities and Freshman Experience courses are two efforts to improve retention which are derived from this research. The purpose of this study was to test portions of Tinto’s longitudinal model of institutional departure that relates academic fit to persistence and degree completion. The study examined placement testing and advising procedures and the effects these procedures have on eventual degree completion. The results of this study should inform the academic community about the efficacy of using a placement test to promote academic fit for first time freshmen enrolled in mathematics courses. Method This quantitative study was an ex-post facto, quasi experimental design which compared three procedures for placement into the initial college mathematics course and the impact on retention and eventual degree completion. The data for this study was obtained from existing data sources. Logistic regression was used to compare the three placement methods and the effect on the odds of eventual degree completion. Results While the placement instrument did provide some useful information for placement decisions about some courses, it does not provide as much information as other available measures, in particular, the high school history expressed as the grade point average. Quality point production at the end of the first year was found to be a strong predictor of eventual graduation. The results suggest that for each one unit increase in the quality points earned the odds of graduation are 1.042 times better. Statistically significant differences were found in the efficacy of the different placement methods; however these differences were overshadowed by the effect of the introduction of a new mathematics course. The average grade in the initial collegiate math class for the groups in this study has risen from a low of 1.87 to 2.37 after the introduction of Math Modeling to the curriculum.

Half of the students who begin college do not complete a degree or certificate. The odds of completing a degree are decreased if a student has a low socio-economic status (SES), is the first in a family to attend college (first-generation), attends multiple institutions, stops out multiple times, reduces credit loads over time, performs poorly in major-specific coursework, has competing family obligations, and experiences financial difficulties. Stopping out of college does not always indicate that a student is no longer interested in pursuing an education; it can be an indication of a barrier or several barriers faced. Institutions can benefit themselves and students by utilizing person-centered statistical methods to re-engage students they have lost, particularly those near the end of their degree plan. Using demographic, academic, and financial variables, this study applied latent class analysis (LCA) to explore subgroups of seniors who have stopped out of a public four-year Tier One research intuition before graduating with a four-year degree. The findings indicated a six-class model was the best fitting model. Similar to previous research, academic and financial variables were key determinants of the latent classes. This paper demonstrates how the results of an LCA can assist institutions in the decisions around intervention strategies and resource allocations.

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College degree attainment benefits both private citizens and society. Historically, degree attainment rates have differed based on students’ race, income, and parental education. Along with differences in degree attainment rates, time to degree has been increasing for all students nationally. Increased time to degree has adverse effects for students as it increases the cost of a degree and decreases future earnings through a delayed entry into the workforce.In recent years, colleges and universities have implemented programs to address challenges with graduation rates at their institutions and improve on-time degree completion. Beginning in 2014, a large public university located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, implemented an on-time degree completion program to address its four-year bachelor’s degree completion rate. In addition to increased academic support for all program participants, up to 500 students with high-financial per cohort were given additional grant funding towards their cost of attendance. The Theory of Planned Behavior frames the process of shaping human behavior as the combination of changing the attitude towards completing the behavior, shifting norms to reflect desired outcomes, and reducing perceived barriers to behavior completion. The on-time degree completion program uses a participant contract and a series of checkpoints to encourage positive behavior, shown through research, to increase graduation rates: priority registration, meeting with an academic advisor, earning a minimum of 30 credits per academic year, and completing a degree audit. The current study analyzed the checkpoint and on-time degree completion data for three consecutive first-time, first-year cohorts at a large public university. The total number of participants included in the study totaled 13,323. Using a combination of descriptive and predictive statistics, I found that both checkpoint completion and on-time degree completion differed based on several participant characteristics, including academic preparation, race, family income, and parental education. However, even when controlling for participant background characteristics, checkpoint completion had a positive relationship to on-time degree completion. Therefore, while there are improvements to be made in the checkpoint completion rates and the equality of those outcomes, the program checkpoints predict on-time graduation. Further, for program participants who receive the program grant funding, there is a correlation between multiple years of grant funding and improvements in on-time graduation rate. Further research should be conducted to understand the reasons students fail to complete checkpoints and the barriers to checkpoint completion for some student groups. Additionally, for participants who were not retained until graduation, a study tracking participants’ degree completion across institutions would help explore the true degree completion rate for the participants, as opposed to at the individual institution. / Educational Administration

College completion is an issue of great concern in the United States, where only 50% of students who start college as freshmen complete a bachelor's degree at that institution within six years. Researchers have studied a variety of factors to understand their relationship to student persistence. Not surprisingly, student characteristics, particularly their academic background prior to entering college, have a tremendous influence on college success. Colleges and universities have little control over student characteristics unless they screen out lesser qualified students during the admissions process, but selectivity is contrary to the push for increased accessibility for under-served groups. As a result, institutions need to better understand the factors that they can control. High-impact educational practices have been shown to improve retention and persistence through increased student engagement. Service-learning, a pedagogical approach that blends meaningful community service and reflection with course content, is a practice that is increasing in popularity, and it has proven beneficial at increasing student learning and engagement. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether participation in service-learning has any influence in the likelihood of degree completion or time to degree and, secondarily, to compare different methods of analysis to determine whether use of more complex models provides better information or more accurate prediction. The population for this study was a large public urban research institution in the mid-Atlantic region, and the sample was the cohort of students who started as first-time, full-time, bachelor's degree-seeking undergraduates in the fall of 2005. Data included demographic and academic characteristics upon matriculation, as well as financial need and aid, academic major, and progress indicators for each of the first six years of enrollment. Cumulative data were analyzed using logistic regression, and year-to-year data were analyzed using discrete-time survival analysis in a structural equation modeling (SEM) framework. Parameter estimates and odds ratios for the predictors in each model were compared. Some similarities were found in the variables that predict degree completion, but there were also some striking differences. The strongest predictors for degree completion were pre-college academic characteristics and strength of academic progress while in college (credits earned and GPA). When analyzed using logistic regression and cross-sectional data, service-learning participation was not a significant predictor for completion, but it did have an effect on completion time for those students who earned a degree within six years. When analyzed longitudinally using discrete-time survival analysis, however, service-learning participation is strongly predictive of degree completion, particularly when credits are earned in the third, fourth, and sixth years of enrollment. In the survival analysis model, service-learning credits earned were also more significant for predicting degree completion than other credits earned. In terms of data analysis, logistic regression was effective at predicting completion, but survival analysis seems to provide a more robust method for studying specific variables that may vary by time.

Thesis advisor: Laura M. O'Dwyer / Students who take postsecondary remedial courses graduate from college at lower rates than other students, but the relationship between remedial education and college outcomes is not well understood. This study analyzes the association between remediation and the odds of degree attainment in two- and four-year colleges, after controlling for other student and institutional factors related to persistence. Using generalized multilevel mixed modeling, it examines variation in these relationships across institutional contexts. Data are drawn from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (2004/2009), a nationally representative sample that tracked students through interviews and transcript data for six years from their first enrollment. Additional institutional variables are incorporated from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Comparisons are made among remedial course subjects, higher and lower numbers of remedial courses taken, and different postsecondary credentials. For students who first enroll at a four-year college, this analysis finds that remediation has a negative association with completing a Bachelor's degree or higher, particularly among students who take remedial Mathematics or three or more remedial classes. While students at two-year institutions who take three or more remedial courses have lower odds of completing a certificate or Bachelor's degree, English as a Second Language coursework emerges as a positive factor for Bachelor's attainment in this population. By contrast, remediation has a positive relationship with attaining an Associate's degree but no higher for two-year college students. This relationship varies significantly across two-year institutions, but institutional factors are not predictive of the variation. No other significant cross-college variation is found in the relationships between remedial variables and outcomes. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Research, Measurement and Evaluation.

The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to investigate the meaning, structure and essence of the lived experiences within a Bachelor's degree completion cohort of adult learners. This study focused on adult learners who are matriculating into a postsecondary institution. The central question of this study was: What are the meaning, structure, and essence of the lived and shared experiences within a Bachelor's degree completion cohort of adult learners? The following research questions were used as a guide in the study: (1) In what ways have these shared experiences within a Bachelor's degree completion program contributed to the transformation of adult learners on the pathway to academic success? (2) In what ways do adult learners define success in higher education? (3) How have the life events of adult learners influenced their decision to return to higher education? Based on the phenomenological research design, the goal was to describe the meaning for several individuals of their lived experiences of a concept or a phenomenon (Creswell, 2007). To achieve such a goal, a phenomenological method of inquiry involves a mode of data collection and analysis that will present the participants' experiences precisely from their particular perspective. From the organization and analysis, six major themes emerged from the participant's educational journey: (1) The Catalyst, (2) Peer Support, (3) Faculty Support, (4) Family Support, (5) Beliefs of Success, and (6) The Future. Along with those six major themes were sub-themes that surfaced such as, learning communities, peer collaboration, parental roles, spouse roles, children's roles, self-awareness, and self-worth.