This study examined the relationships between 1. institutional expenditures on academic support as measured by total amount and student persistence; 2. institutional expenditures on academic support as measured by amount per student FTE and student persistence; 3. institutional expenditures on student services as measured by total amount and student persistence; and 4. institutional expenditures on student services as measured by amount per FTE. It also explored the relationship between student engagement as measured by the five benchmarks (Academic Challenge, Active & Collaborative Learning, Student Faculty Interaction, Enriching Education Experience, and Supportive Campus Environment) and student persistence. Finally, it explored relationships among institutional expenditures, student engagement and student persistence. The study is a non experimental quantitative study utilizing two data sources, NSSE 2005 survey data and IPEDS data source. The study utilized data from 71 public Research Institutions Extensive and Intensive on the 2000 Carnegie Classification of institutions. The findings showed that institutional expenditures on academic support are positively significantly related to persistence. Institutional expenditures on student services are also positively significantly related to persistence. The variance in persistence attributed to difference in total academic support is higher than that attributed to by student services. Likewise, the variance attributed to student support total amount is higher than variance attributed to by student support per student FTE. Examination of the relationship between Student Engagement and Retention showed that four of the student engagement benchmarks were significant. Academic Challenge was not significant. Active and Collaborative Learning and Student Faculty Interaction were significant but both had negative coefficients. Results also showed that there were significant relationships among institutional expenditures, student engagement and persistence through partial mediation in the structural equation model. One benchmark in the model, Student Faculty Interaction was however not significant.

The rising cost of tuition and fees is no doubt a major contributor to rising student debt but it is certainly not the only factor. The amount of debt with which students may graduate can largely be a function of the type of institution they attend (Monks, 2014). There is a dearth of research that focuses on the institutional factors that relate to student debt consumption (Craig and Raisanen, 2014; Macy and Terry, 2007). Prior studies have shown that the amount of expenditures and the area in which an institution spends their money can impact salient student outcomes This quantitative dissertation sought to examine institutional expenditures within higher education and their possible relationship to student debt through a fixed-effects analysis that used data across a six-year period. This study examined public comprehensive master's level institutions as defined by the Carnegie Classification system. This institutional type has been overlooked within higher education research (Henderson, 2007). In short, this dissertation sought to investigate the relationship between spending within the public comprehensive master's level institution and average annual federal student loan use. This study found that there was a modest negative relationship between spending on research and academic support and student loan consumption. Spending on operation of maintenance and plant was positively related to student loan consumption. This dissertation further found that the number of students receiving the Pell grant, the percent of students that identify as Hispanic and the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) students were statistically significant regarding their student loan use. The percent of students receiving the Pell grant within an institution related to higher levels of student debt. The percent of students that identify as Hispanic and the number of FTEs were related to lower average levels of student debt. This study has implications for policymakers and administrators pursuing factors that reduce student loan usage and gives insight into the impacts of institutional spending. These findings also have implications for future research that explores not only institutional spending and student outcomes but also how spending may impact institutional mission and the composition of a student body. / Ph. D. / There is no doubt that the cost of enrolling in a college or university has increased dramatically during the past few decades. There is significant research on the impacts of student loan use and what groups of students may be more or less prone to use student loans and possible associated outcomes (i.e. racial/ethnic background, job placement, homeownership and likelihood of default to name a few). What is far less explored are the ways in which an institution as a whole may impact student loan use. For example, we know very little about whether or not similar students attending similar schools would consume the same amount of student loans. If they do not this could be for a number of reasons. Unfortunately, there is a very limited set of studies that explore this phenomenon. This study explores one part of this puzzle by examining the spending patterns of public comprehensive master’s level institutions (i.e. Radford University, Eastern Kentucky University, Cal State Northridge) and their relationship to student loan use during a six-year period. Because these institutions tend to be less prominent than large research universities (Virginia Tech) they are often overlooked within higher education research. Prior research has found that the relationship between institutional spending and student outcome factors such as time to graduation, leadership development, and even the student body’s perception of their university are related. This study was undertaken in a very similar manner except the student outcome was the average annual amount of student loans consumed within the institutional population. There were relationships between spending categories (i.e. research, academic support and operation of maintenance and plant) and student loan use and not between other areas of spending (i.e. instruction, auxiliary, institutional support and student services). The findings from this study are important because even though we understand student loan use and the amount of debt students graduate with is a major concern we know little about the multitude of factors that may have an impact. This study is also important because it is easily replicable and draws data from easily available public databases. As student debt continues to be a concern and college administrators struggle to make up for lost revenues we should have measures and iv models that allow researchers and policymakers to readily explore how changes to a university’s spending patterns and even institutional classification may be effecting students.

It is anticipated that there will be a shortage of 1.1 million college-educated workers in California by 2030 (Johnson, Bohn, & Cuellar Mejia, 2016). Within this context, the California State University (CSU) is the principal source of skilled workers in the state, producing more career-ready candidates than any other single institution (“California State University 2018 Fact Book“, n.d.). This study examined the relationship between student retention rates and institutional expenditures across the different functional categories of instruction, student services, academic support, and instructional support at the CSU. With the exception of student grants and scholarships, these selected expenditures represent the system’s four largest individual expense categories. This study also sought to reveal the existence of similarities between institutions across the CSU based on institutional characteristics that emerged from the literature as predictors of student success including faculty composition, socioeconomic status of student population, and institutional selectivity (Bailey, Calcagno, Jenkins, Kienzl, & Leinbach, 2005; Ehrenberg & Zhang, 2005a, 2005b; Gansemer-Topf & Schuh (2006); Terenzini, Cabrera, & Bernal, 2001; Titus, 2006b). The sample utilized in this study is the entire population of the CSU, which is comprised of 23 campuses. Data for this study were drawn from the IPEDS database, managed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). This quantitative, non-experimental, correlational study used panel data analysis to determine if the selected institutional expenditures influence retention rates and also to examine the extent to which institutional expenditures contribute to the prediction of retention rate. Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) cluster analysis was performed for exploratory purposes and to reveal groups with similar institutional characteristics. This study found that instructional, academic support, and institutional support expenditures were positively correlated with student retention rates. This finding suggests that increases in both dollar amounts and proportion of expenditures allocated to each functional category would result in higher retention rates. However, there was an exception: student services expenditures were found to be negatively correlated with student retentions rates, implying that allocating funds to student services activities would not result in higher student retention. This study also found that the CSU institutions can be grouped in six different clusters based on similarities of institutional characteristics, suggesting that the criteria to allocate funds from the CSU system to individual campuses should account for these differences to effectively support student success.