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Many adult students struggle to finance their educations, often contending with work and child care expenses in addition to the extra cost of remedial courses. Moreover, there is little needbased grant aid to help. This report presents early findings from an evaluation of a program in New York City targeted to low-income adults (ages 22 to 35) who need remedial course work. Part of MDRC's national Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration, the program operated at Borough of Manhattan Community College and Hostos Community College, both part of the City University of New York, in 2008 and 2009. These findings suggest that incentive scholarships may increase full-time attendance and summer enrollment, which may, in turn, benefit low-income adults needing remediation by decreasing the time they need to earn degrees or certificates. Future reports will present impacts for the full sample on measures not covered here, including student retention, credit accumulation, graduation and transfer rates, motivation, and use of scholarship monies.

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Using a sample of youth who graduated from high school in the late 1990s and early 2000s, this paper examines the impact of high school math curriculum on the decision to go to college. Results that control for unobserved differences between students and their families suggest that a more rigorous high school math curriculum is associated with a higher probability of attending college and of attending a 4-year college. The household fixed effect results imply that students who take an advanced academic math curriculum in high school (algebra II or precalculus, trigonometry, or calculus) are about 17 percentage points more likely to go to college and 20 percentage points more likely to start college at a 4-year school by age 21 compared to those students whose highest math class was algebra I or geometry.

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Pacific Islander (PI) communities are underrepresented in US higher education, and hold bachelor's degrees at rates lower than the national rate (US Census 2012). Empowering Pacific Island Communities (EPIC and Asian Americans Advancing Justice 2014) reported that Guamanians (13 per cent), Samoans (11 per cent), Tongans (11 per cent), Fijians (10 per cent), and Micronesians (4 per cent) all hold bachelor's degrees at less than half the rate of the national population of the United States (28 per cent). As college tuitions continue to rise (Mumper and Freeman 2005; Schoen 2015), and meritocratic aid (Perna and Titus 2004) replaces need-based aid, there is the possibility that PI participation in higher education may be hampered even further.

This research on 'college choice' for PIs entering college athletics is an attempt to study alternative pathways to higher education. The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate the goals and expectations of PI high school football players in relation to their college decision. Specifically, this paper identifies and explores the decision-making process of PI high school football recruits and how they chose a particular college to launch their academic and athletic careers.

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Retention of higher education students has been decreasing over the last decades of the last century (Swail, 2004). Retention decreases, however, are not equally impacting all students or all higher education institutions. Community college retention rates are lower than rates in four-year institutions (Wild & Ebbers, 2002), and minority student retention rates are lower than rates for White students (Fry, 2004; Swail, 2004). Since community colleges are often the first entry into higher education for low-income students, and since often these students are minority students, community colleges are experiencing low retention rates, especially among first-year students (Hernandez & Lopez, 2005). Although volumes of research have been conducted regarding minority retention, few studies have focused on the problem-specific level of community colleges. This article reports barriers that first-semester Hispanic students at one community college reported they have experienced, identifies the institutional initiatives placed to counter this Hispanic student attrition, and provides recommendations to increase the retention of Hispanic community college students. The study suggests that when first-semester Hispanic students attempt to succeed in college but do not, it is not necessarily always the students' fault.

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Across our nation, community colleges are closing their doors, deferring the dreams of more than 400,000 prospective students. It is a retreat from America's commitment to expand college access and success happening, ironically, at the very moment that our nation's leaders say we need more, not fewer, people with post-secondary education. It is a retreat that threatens our nation's future. This report, the first by the Center for the Future of Higher Education, analyzes recent problematic enrollment and policy trends at the nation's community colleges. It uncovers trends toward expanding caps on community college enrollment and narrowing the educational programs available for students, denying access to higher education for large numbers of lower-income students and students of color.

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This guide presents examples and instructions for data analyses colleges can conduct to better understand student enrollments and completions in particular programs. Such analyses can help colleges scrutinize representation of historically marginalized groups in programs leading to greater opportunity after graduation. There is an equity imperative in this effort. Without disaggregating program enrollments with an eye to what those programs lead to - and interrogating and redesigning practices and policies perpetuating inequities - student success reform approaches such as guided pathways will likely continue to reinforce existing racial/ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic stratification. Examining representation across college programs with equity in mind is an important complement to the work colleges are doing to increase completion rates overall and close equity gaps.

The authors recommend that colleges undertake a series of data exercises and reflective discussions based on the following three questions: (1) What programs are our students currently enrolled in? (2) What opportunity does each program lead to in terms of further education (e.g., transfer to bachelor's programs or bridges into more advanced workforce credentials) and/or immediate job prospects and earnings; (3) Which programs lead to greater or lesser opportunity? Is student representation across programs proportionate? Which subgroups of students (by race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and age) are underrepresented in higher-opportunity programs? To answer these questions, the authors show how to carry out a set of relatively simple data analyses that colleges can replicate using their own data. Similar analyses can be used to examine program completions.

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This ‘first look’ presents findings from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Spring 2007 data collection, which included four components: Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2006; Graduation Rates, 2000 & 2003 Cohorts; and Financial Statistics, Fiscal Year 2006. These data were collected through the IPEDS web-based data collection system. Findings include: In Fall 2006, Title IV institutions in the United States enrolled a total of 18 million individual graduate and undergraduate students; 62 per cent were enrolled in 4-year institutions, 37 per cent in 2-year institutions, and two per cent in less-than-2-year institutions. Graduation rates of bachelors-seeking students at 4-year institutions were higher at private not-for-profit institutions than at public or private for-profit institutions (table 6). For example, the 4-year graduation rate of all bachelors-seeking students was 50 per cent at private not-for-profit institutions, 29 per cent at public institutions, and 26 per cent at private, for-profit institutions. During [the] 2005-06 academic year, 75 per cent of the 2.7 million full-time, first-time degree/certificate-seeking undergraduates attending Title IV institutions located in the United States received financial aid.

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Community college students invest considerable time and money into attending college, but too few of them complete their programs of study. This paper discusses how the development of an overall framing vision for student success, the implementation of evidence-based practices, and the establishment of a culture that is both committed to student success and conducive to innovation are useful, complementary approaches that colleges can pursue to improve student outcomes.

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This 'Stats in brief' uses nationally representative data to determine the representation of military students in undergraduate and graduate education and to examine how their demographic and enrollment characteristics compare with their nonmilitary peers.

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This report examines shifts in enrolments of international students in higher education in England, and explores what might have caused them. It focuses on the entrant student population, which indicates the latest developments in student enrolments. It is one of a series of analyses by [Higher Education Funding Council for England] HEFCE of current data and future trends in higher education.

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