In response to the increasing cost of college, colleges and universities are leveraging financial aid and academic support services to implement access and success programs intended to help financially disadvantaged students afford and persist through a baccalaureate degree program. This research is a study of the efficacy of one such program at a large research university in the southwestern region of the United States. The study sample included low-income program participants in four cohorts of freshmen enrolling for the first time in college from fall 2007 (Cohort 1) to fall 2010 (Cohort 4) and a comparison group of almost 400 low-income freshmen who enrolled for the first time in college in fall 2006 (the year prior to program implementation) for a sample total of over 2150 students. Approximately 64% were female, 36 % were males, over 60% were African American and Hispanic, and over 75% were first generation college students. Logistic regression was used to measure probability and odds of their academic success and retention in the first year of college utilizing gender, ethnicity, parental degree attainment, and program participation as the independent variables. The logistic regression models illustrated that participation in the program netted a consistently positive and significant impact on academic success across all cohorts, increasing the odds ratio for academic success no less than three times in favor of program participants vis-à-vis the comparison group. The statistical models illustrated that the program netted a slight positive impact on the odds of retention, particularly for African American students. Therefore, the principle implication that might be drawn from this study is that by strategically leveraging financial aid and academic support services, access and success programs can facilitate higher rates of academic success and retention for financially disadvantaged college students.

ABSTRACT Access to pre-college and college support programs is essential to student achievement and success. There are a myriad of opportunities and programming that will assist in college readiness for K–12 students. Exposure and awareness are key to these college readiness programs. By participating in college readiness programs, students are more apt to further their postsecondary education and graduate from an institution of higher education. Dual enrollment programs are just one avenue that students can explore to prepare for college. These programs allow students to take college level courses while being dually enrolled at both the college/university and their high school. This allows the student to earn college credit and high school credit simultaneously.Pre-college and readiness programs are crucial for student success, especially for underrepresented populations. Access to accurate and comprehensive information about college can aid individual students’ postsecondary decision-making process. However, studies show that students’ access to college information and their sources for such information greatly vary depending on their demographic circumstances (Galotti & Mark, 1994). The survey was distributed to school administrators and school counseling personnel. Thirty-seven individuals responded and completed the survey. The third and final phase was a series of one-on-one interviews conducted with ten school leaders to discuss how they widen access to dual enrollment programs. The survey data provided the foundation, and the interview provided a deeper understanding to arrive at answers to the research questions. Of the survey respondents, it was found that school leaders take on as much responsibility as the school counseling personnel as related to preparing students for pre-college programs. The interviews with school leaders further explained their position on how they widen access to all students, such as by establishing more high school/university partnerships. The findings from this study provided insight into how students are assisted in the college preparation process. Additional research is needed to further examine the perspective of the school counseling personnel and the student/family perspective. / Educational Leadership

This report explores the extent, trends, and consequences of academic undermatch, defined as students enrolling at an institution of relatively less selectivity than what their academic qualifications grant them access to, including non-enrollment. Using a sample of two cohorts of Central Texas high school graduates, this report finds that undermatch occurs among all students, but that it was more extensive for low-income students and among students with average qualification levels. Low-income students were found to undermatch at 65.1 percent and non low-income students at 53.9 percent of those who enroll. Between 2008 and 2009, undermatch increased among all students; among the highest qualified low-income students it increased by 10 percentage points. The majority of undermatched students were found to be enrolled at two-year over four-year institutions. A negative relationship between qualification level and annual earnings was found in the earnings of students who did not enroll. This report provides a set of recommendations to address undermatch and college access among low-income students in Central Texas. / text

This research addresses how socioeconomic status impacts the ways that students with learning disabilities and their families interact with the school system and the consequences of these interactions. This will inform policy on special education, and college level services and accommodations for students with learning disabilities. In addition to exploring general patterns of college attendance for students with learning disabilities, this research will include an analysis of what factors best predict college attendance and persistence for students with learning disabilities. Specifically, the forms of capital framework including economic, social, and cultural capital along with habitus are used to understand issues of access and success in college. The primary findings of this study include a) the intersection of socioeconomic status and disability create an extreme form of stratification in college attendance for students with learning disabilities, b) each form of capital is significantly related to college attendance, c) measures of habitus are some of the strongest predictors of college attendance, d) forms of capital best predict college attendance at four-year colleges and universities and are less predictive for other forms of post-secondary education, and e) current models of college persistence may not be accurate for this population of students.

This dissertation examines trends in access for Black students at public institutions in Texas, specifically, the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin), in the context of automatic admission laws and race-based admission policies. Thus, the current study explores how Black students matriculate through the educational pipeline from high school graduation through college enrollment. For this study, I utilize Critical Race Theory as the framework to analyze data for Texas high school students from 2000 through 2010. I employed a quantitative methodological approach, which includes both descriptive analyses and logistic regression. Black people are facing seemingly bleak educational outcomes throughout the education pipeline -- they are less likely to graduate from high school, be college ready, apply to a competitive four-year institution, be admitted, enroll, persist and graduate. Automatic admission laws and affirmative action have been implemented to address these issues, especially for selective institutions. Increased access to Texas' most selective public institution, UT-Austin, may lead to higher persistence and graduation rates for Black students compared to other state colleges and universities. However, Black students remain the most underrepresented group at UT-Austin in spite of these laws and policies. This study is unique because no other research has examined how automatic admission laws and affirmative action operate simultaneously. Moreover, this study fills in some significant gaps in the literature as it relates to Black students in higher education. Findings from this study suggest that while there is progress toward access for Black students at UT-Austin, there is still room for growth. Despite perceptions that Black students do not want to attend UT-Austin, this study found that Black students were more likely to apply to the University compared to White students when holding other factors constant. However, the research findings indicate that White students still have an admissions advantage over Black students even when accounting for SAT scores, family background and the type of high school a student attended. Furthermore, Black students are less likely to enroll at UT-Austin compared to their White counterparts. Finally, the results from this study also suggest that affirmative action has not had the same impact for Black students under the top 10% plan as it has when the policy was used by itself. / text

There are a number of factors that contribute to the differences in college access rates of under-represented students compared with their white and Asian American counterparts. Families play a role in whether students experience a college-going culture. In an effort to challenge the dominant literature which focuses primarily on familial deficits, the intent of this research is to understand families from a different model, that of funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992). Using a qualitative approach of embedded case studies and oral history interviews, this study explored the funds of knowledge present in six Mexican families in a university outreach program and sought to understand how those funds of knowledge contribute to the development of the college ideologies for their families. Participants are represented by the term household clusters, which includes extensions of families beyond the nuclear household (Vélez-Ibáñez & Greenberg, 2005). Three theoretical frameworks were used for this study. The primary framework utilized is funds of knowledge (Gonzalez, Moll & Amanti, 2005), with social capital (Bourdieu 1973, 1977) and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986; Bourdieu & Passerson, 1977) serving as supplemental frameworks. Findings illustrate that funds of knowledge in the form of daily educational practices were present in household clusters and influenced children’s academic experiences and college knowledge. Educational ideologies highlighted the ways in which beliefs around the college-going process were formed and manifested as both helpful and limiting. Finally, it was evident that parental involvement was valued; this also included examples of non-traditional involvement, particularly when mothers worked at their children’s schools.

The overall goal of the research was to deepen our understanding of the culture of college access work through the views of practitioners who design and staff college access programs. This study sought to explore the values, standards, philosophical foundations, career patterns, and networks that influence and guide the work of college access professionals. The study was based primarily upon interviews with twenty college and university professionals who work in the state of Arizona and an analysis of the professional associations in which they participate. The study was modeled after Becher's analysis of the culture of academic disciplines and interview questions fell in the following categories: 1) characteristics of the field, 2) epistemological issues, 3) career patterns, 4) reputations and rewards, 5) professional activity, and 6) value systems. Results indicate that college access professionals tend to describe their work in terms of programs and services to students, family engagement, and developing capacity in the schools. The use of research varies amongst practitioners. The change in the scope of college access work and the growth in the field have also led to the creation of new professional associations. Implications of the study include the need for practioners and professional associations to collaborate, and the need for practitioners to build their knowledge base of the research supporting their work.

Low income and under-represented minority students face multiple kinds of barriers that limit their access to higher education. In the interest of increasing access to college, pre-college bridge programs exist throughout the United States to serve students from low socio-economic status families. This study examines teaching by women in the Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) program. AVID is a middle school and high school intervention program that helps middle-achieving low income and under-represented minority students with college access. Critical Portraiture methodology is used to examine the ways that female AVID teachers teach students more than just academic skills that increase access to higher education: the framing of student success, the negotiation and justification of upholding the myth of meritocracy in the classroom, the internalization of parental roles with students, and the navigation of race. / 10000-01-01

This work is a case study focused on the practices of a comprehensive college access program that serves students in south Los Angeles that has maintained a high school graduation rate of 100% and a college matriculation rate of 98% since 1997. This study sought to utilize the voice and experience of students of color to discern the factors that are most effective in helping urban students of color and in turn, inform the future work of the college access community. The study was driven by the following research questions: a) which practices of a south Los Angeles college access program most impact a student's ability to matriculate to college? and b) How can the epistemology of urban students inform the work of college access programs? Through observations, interviews, journal exercises and document review, this study ranked the practices in order of importance according to the participants, and identified that structure and accountability are essential to the success of this college access program. In addition, the study revealed that the students of this program succeed academically because the program, provides students with structure, access and guidance; because it immerses its students in a college-going culture; because it offers access to academic and cultural resources; because it sets high academic expectations; because it engages the family of origin and creates a family within the program; and because it enhances the self-concept of its students: college access programs see students as scholars. Using funds of knowledge as a framework, this study also introduced the original term, “masked epistemologies” which refers to the shared experiences of college access students once they enter college. The concept of masked epistemologies refers to the experience of students who enter college via a college access program, who go on to feel like her ways of knowing, shaped by the unique experience of being a high achieving student participant of a college access program from an urban setting, are disregarded in the new, unknown terrain of college, and must be masked or concealed, only to be revealed in environments considered safe. The students’ epistemologies go from being highly praised and admired, to being ignored to the point of invisibility. This study found that students of this college access program struggle with adapting to the social realm of college because they have not been exposed to class differences throughout their tenure in the program.

Thesis advisor: Heather Rowan-Kenyon / Although a college degree is an increasingly important gateway to economic advancement in the United States, high school students with disabilities enroll in postsecondary education at lower rates than nondisabled students. The disparities in college access for these students indicate that there may be differences in how they are navigating the college choice process, or the process of deciding whether and where to go to college, in comparison to their nondisabled peers. In order to better understand how students with disabilities make college-related decisions, this narrative inquiry examined the college choice experiences of three high school students with disabilities. Using a disability studies lens and a conceptualization of college choice that combines models proposed by Perna (2006) and Webb (2000), I studied both how students navigated the pre-matriculation stages of college choice as well as how their understanding of disability and their experiences with special education impacted their choice processes. This narrative inquiry is presented as three stories of college choice, one for each participant, and is based on semi-structured conversations and observations with participants as they worked on their college applications over the course of the 2022-2023 academic year. The narrative themes from participants’ stories suggest that students’ understanding of disability and their academic experiences in school, including experiences with receiving special education services, shaped their student identities and influenced their processes for deciding to pursue postsecondary education, exploring and selecting college options, and completing college applications. Factors such as parental involvement, career aspirations, and school resources, which are traditionally thought to be important in the college choice process, were also important for my participants. Implications from this research include finding ways to build accessible college-related supports into the secondary school curriculum, normalizing special education in school communities, and identifying places where application forms and admissions processes are impeding students’ success. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.