Research in Higher Education最新文献

College education plays a crucial role in upward social mobility. However, despite applying to and being accepted by colleges, students often fail to matriculate—a phenomenon known as “summer melt”. The summer after high school graduation is a vulnerable period for these students due to limited counseling support from both high schools and accepted colleges. While summer counseling has been studied as an intervention to address summer melt, little research exists on programs using “near-peer” counselors, despite evidence from smaller-scale interventions suggesting their positive impact and cost-effectiveness. This study utilizes administrative data for 54,000 New York City high school seniors who graduated in June 2020 at the peak of the COVID-19 Pandemic. It aims to examine the impact of a remote near-peer college matriculation support program on students’ enrollment in Fall 2020 using propensity score matching. The results indicate that the program increased matriculation by seven percentage points. Notably, it proved particularly effective for Black and Hispanic students, as well as students residing in low-income neighborhoods—groups that are typically underserved in higher education. These findings, drawn from the largest public school system in the nation, offer evidence supporting the efficacy of near-peer mentoring programs in promoting college matriculation.

Community colleges provide broad access to a college degree due to their less expensive tuition, greater course time offerings, and more open admission policies compared to four-year universities as reported (Juszkiewicz, 2015). These institutions have great potential to diversify who chooses STEM, such as engineering. Such diverse representation is important, because students from different backgrounds can contribute new perspectives that foster creative and innovative approaches to solving problems. However, approximately 40% of the students who enter community college in the U.S. leave before graduation (Xu & Jaggars, 2011). Harnessing the power of social media to reduce attrition, we tested a pilot intervention in which community college students in engineering courses completed a reflection exercise after watching YouTube videos of former engineering students from similar backgrounds who successfully transferred to a four-year college. Quasi-experimental analyses (N = 537) show that students in the intervention received higher engineering course grades and had greater odds of enrolling in an engineering course in the subsequent term compared to those who were not in the intervention. Additionally, we find support for the hypothesis that the intervention has larger benefits for women. Results suggest that hearing from other students about their engineering experience can be a useful tool for improving community college students’ choices and performance.

As colleges and universities grapple with uncertainty around current and future enrollment as well as increasingly vocal questions about the value of postsecondary education, it is critically important that institutions ascertain and invest in the elements of campus learning and engagement that add value to the undergraduate experience. This study examines the relationship between cumulative participation in high-impact practices (HIPs) and the perceived importance of postsecondary experience in preparation for adult life using the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS) dataset. Employing a methodology proposed and tested by Leite et al. (Struct Equ Model Multidiscip J 26(3):448–469, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705511.2018.1522591), this analysis incorporated the ability to account for self-selection into HIPs using propensity score (PS) analysis with a multiple-group structural equation model (SEM) design to examine differences between students who participated in two or more HIPs and those who did not (n = 3105). Results offered evidence of benefit to participation in two or more HIP experiences with positive and statistically significant differences in the perceived importance of postsecondary education in preparation for adult life across the analytic sample with doubly robust estimation techniques. Interaction effects for female students, students from low SES backgrounds, and students who are members of minoritized racial/ethnic populations were also identified. The findings offered evidence of post-graduation impact of cumulative participation in HIPs that can inform program development and student decision-making as well as the future use of analytic techniques such as PS analysis, doubly robust estimation, and sensitivity analysis to enhance measurement precision.