Student Competency Perceptions From Associate Degree to Bachelor Degree Completion

We replicate and extend prior work on Florida’s Bright Futures merit aid scholarship to consider its effect on college enrollment and degree completion. We estimate causal impacts using a regression discontinuity design to exploit SAT thresholds that strongly determine eligibility. We find no positive impacts on attendance or attainment, and instrumental variable results generally reject estimates as small as 1 to 2 percentage points. Across subgroups, we find that eligibility slightly reduces 6-year associate degree attainment for lower socioeconomic status students and may induce small enrollment shifts among Hispanic and White students toward 4-year colleges. Our findings of these minimal-at-best impacts contrast those of prior works, attributable in part to methodological improvements and more robust data, and further underscore the importance of study replication.

Download Full-text

Administrators' Perceptions of Motives to Offer Online Academic Degree Programs in Universities

The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning ◽

10.19173/irrodl.v19i1.3422 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Hakan Özcan ◽

Soner Yıldırım

Keyword(s):

Degree Completion ◽

Associate Degree ◽

Bachelor's Degree ◽

Teaching Staff ◽

Degree Programs ◽

Prospective Students ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Academic Degree ◽

Associate Degree Programs ◽

Degree Completion Programs

<p class="3">Although the number of online academic degree programs offered by universities in Turkey has become increasingly significant in recent years, the current lack of understanding of administrators’ motives that contribute to initiating these programs suggests there is much to be learned in this field. This study aimed to investigate administrators’ perceptions of motives for offering online academic degree programs in universities in Turkey in terms of online associate degree programs, online master's degree programs, online bachelor's degree completion programs, and online bachelor's degree programs. A qualitative research method was employed for this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 administrators from different universities’ distance education centers in Turkey and thematic analysis was applied to the data. The research found that administrators’ motives for offering online academic degree programs mainly involve in answering to the high demand of prospective students. Six major themes were identified with regard to influencing factors for administrators’ motives: demands for programs, mission to support education, readiness of infrastructure, teaching staff as well as applicability of content, overcoming the shortage of classroom space and teachers, obtaining revenue, and gaining prestige.</p>

Download Full-text

The Graduate Pathways Survey: New Insights on Education and Employment Outcomes Five Years after Bachelor Degree Completion

Higher Education Quarterly ◽

10.1111/j.1468-2273.2010.00471.x ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 65 (1) ◽

pp. 74-93 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Hamish Coates ◽

Daniel Edwards

Keyword(s):

Degree Completion ◽

Employment Outcomes ◽

Bachelor Degree ◽

Education And Employment

Download Full-text

A Qualitative Description Investigation of U.S. Higher Education Quantitative Datasets

The Qualitative Report ◽

10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4397 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Mia Ocean ◽

Karon Hicks

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Community Colleges ◽

Degree Completion ◽

Associate Degree ◽

Graduate Programs ◽

Qualitative Description ◽

Open Door Policy ◽

Traditional Student ◽

Success Stories ◽

Quantitative Metrics

Currently, the U.S. system of higher education is almost exclusively evaluated by quantitative data based on traditional student trajectories and university structured programs. This could be problematic for community colleges and post-traditional students, who are a growing population at all institutions. Therefore, we conducted a pilot, qualitative description analysis of three U.S. quantitative national datasets to assess their accuracy and identify factors that influence classifications. We interviewed individuals (n=13) who would qualitatively be considered success stories, specifically individuals who attended community colleges during their undergraduate studies and ultimately high ranking graduate programs, to gather information about their educational timelines. In some cases, the datasets would classify these individuals as completers but not always. Participants would be classified as non-completers for two major reasons: transfer prior to Associate degree completion and limitations with prescribed timelines. The latter is complicated by the perceived freedom of the open door policy at community colleges. The results from this study indicate a need to modify existing quantitative metrics to purposefully incorporate community colleges and their students, and the findings reinforce the importance of qualitative research in higher education.

Download Full-text