Effects of a Summer Bridge Program on Student Grade Point Average and Retention

Both society- and individual-level factors serve to make persistence through one's university career more difficult, especially for students with disadvantaged financial and academic backgrounds. Using a rich dataset of students at a rural, 4-year university in Pennsylvania, we compare GPA and persistence outcomes of two groups of students in academic and financial need: those that participated in a summer bridge (SB) program and those with similar high school backgrounds that did not. Multivariate logistic regression and survival analysis are used to test for any statistical associations between SB participation and persistence while controlling for student demographic, high school background, and home area factors. Results suggest that while SB students come into college at a significant economic and academic disadvantage, they have 60% higher odds of persisting to the second semester and 71% higher odds of persisting to the second year than students in the non-SB comparison group ( p < 0.01).