The college-educated are more likely to vote than are those with less education. Prior research suggests that the effect of college attendance on voting operates directly, by increasing an individual's interest and engagement in politics through social networks or human capital accumulation. College may also increase voting indirectly by leading to degree attainment and increasing socioeconomic status, thus facilitating political participation. However, few studies have empirically tested these direct and indirect pathways or examined how these effects vary across individuals. To bridge this gap, we employ a nonparametric causal mediation analysis to examine the total, direct, and indirect effects of college attendance on voting and how these effects differ across individuals with different propensities of attending college. Using data from the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, we find large direct effects of college on self-reported voting and comparably smaller indirect effects that operate through degree completion and socioeconomic attainment. We find the largest impact of college on voting for individuals unlikely to attend, a pattern due primarily to heterogeneity in the direct effect of college. Our findings suggest that civic returns to college are not contingent upon degree completion or socioeconomic returns. An exclusive focus on the economic returns to college can mask the broader societal benefits of expanding higher education to disadvantaged youth.

Rural students enroll in college at lower rates than nonrural students. This has been partially attributed to lower average socioeconomic status (SES) in rural areas. However, this assertion tends to ignore heterogeneity that may mask how SES shapes rural students' college-going experiences. Utilizing a geography of opportunity framework, this study investigated how rural-nonrural differences in college-going vary based on SES. Analyses reveal that (a) rural and nonrural students in the High School Longitudinal Study (HSLS) had very similar mean SES; (b) rural status still predicted lower college enrollment rates overall, as well as four-year enrollment specifically; (c) the overall rural-nonrural enrollment gap was primarily a gap for low- and middle-SES students; and (d) there was greater socioeconomic inequality in college access in rural geographies than in nonrural geographies. These findings reinforce the fact rural students are not a monolithic group and emphasize the continued importance of SES between and within geographies. Given these findings, recommendations are provided with the intent of making college enrollment more equitable by the joint consideration of rurality and SES.

Access to dual-enrollment courses, which allow high school students to earn college credit, is stratified by race/ethnicity, class, and geography. States and colleges have begun using of readiness, including measures of student preparedness, in lieu of strict reliance on test scores in an attempt to expand and equalize access. This practice was accelerated by COVID-19 due to disruptions in standardized testing. However, limited research has examined how beliefs shape students' experiences and outcomes in dual-enrollment courses. We study a large dual-enrollment program created by a university in the Southwest to examine these patterns. We find that mathematics self-efficacy and educational expectations predict performance in dual-enrollment courses, even when controlling for students' academic preparedness, while factors such as high school belonging, college belonging, and self-efficacy in other academic domains are unrelated to academic performance. However, we find that students of color and first-generation students have lower self-efficacy and educational expectations before enrolling in dual-enrollment courses, in addition to having lower levels of academic preparation. These findings suggest that using non-cognitive measures to determine student eligibility for dual-enrollment courses could exacerbate, rather than ameliorate, inequitable patterns of participation. Students from historically marginalized populations may benefit from social-psychological as well as academic supports in order to receive maximum benefits from early postsecondary opportunities such as dual-enrollment. Our findings have implications for how states and dual-enrollment programs determine eligibility for dual-enrollment as well as how dual-enrollment programs should be designed and delivered in order to promote equity in college preparedness.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented number of higher education institutions adopted test-optional admissions policies. The proliferation of these policies and the criticism of standardized admissions tests as unreliable predictors of applicants' postsecondary educational promise have prompted the reimagining of evaluative methodologies in college admissions. However, few institutions have designed and implemented new measures of applicants' potential for success, rather opting to redistribute the weight given to other variables such as high school course grades and high school GPA. We use multiple regression to investigate the predictive validity of a measure of non-cognitive, motivational-developmental dimensions implemented as part of a test-optional admissions policy at a large urban research university in the United States. The measure, composed of four short-answer essay questions, was developed based on the social-cognitive motivational and developmental-constructivist perspectives. Our findings suggest that scores derived from the measure make a statistically significant but small contribution to the prediction of undergraduate GPA and 4-year bachelor's degree completion. We also find that the measure does not make a statistically significant nor practical contribution to the prediction of 5-year graduation.

Delays in meeting math requirements can impede the progress among community college students who aspire to earn a baccalaureate degree. To investigate this issue, we used state administrative data from Texas to examine the prevalence and predictors of math course repetition and how math course repetition predicts transfer students' outcomes. More than a third of community college transfer students take additional introductory mathematics coursework despite having fulfilled the requirement-a phenomenon we referred to as "horizontal repetition"-and one sixth of community college students take redundant coursework within a given mathematics course sequence, referred to as "vertical repetition." Using regression models controlling for student backgrounds, academic experiences, and institutional fixed effects, we found that horizontal repetition was linked to lower GPA and, among degree recipients, increased time to degree and excess credits. Vertical repetition was negatively associated with GPA and degree completion and positively linked to increased time to degree and excess credits. Location of course repetition shaped student outcomes, where math course repetitions occurring at the university appear to drive many of the negative associations between both horizontal and vertical repetition and student outcomes. As community colleges and universities across the country consider the efficacy of course sequences and transfer pathways, our research offers insights into patterns and implications of course repetition in core math courses.

Scholars have identified that openness to diversity is a vital student outcome for higher education. Interest in this outcome has only intensified in recent years because of increased attention to, and unrest related to, social injustices. Using longitudinal data from 3420 undergraduate members of historically white college men's social fraternities located at 134 higher education institutions in the United States, this study examined factors that influenced the development of openness to diversity and change (ODC) amongst fraternity members from the 2019-2020 to 2020-2021 academic years. Our findings revealed that individual and institutional-level political and social involvement, and individual and institutional-level conceptualizations of fraternal brotherhood (e.g., brotherhood based on belonging) were associated with ODC during the 2020-2021 academic year. Though historically white college men's fraternities have often perpetuated exclusionary environments both in historical and contemporary times, the study results suggest that political and social involvement and participation in fraternities that emphasize belonging and accountability may contribute to college men's ODC. We urge scholars and practitioners to have more nuanced understandings of fraternities, while simultaneously challenging fraternities to put their values into actions and to deconstruct the legacies of exclusion that exist within these organizations.

United States (US) immigration policies have increasingly focused on national security resulting in universities experiencing declines in international student applications, constraints on international scholar employment, and complications facilitating international research collaborations. The COVID-19 pandemic brought additional travel restrictions, embassy closures, and health and safety concerns that exacerbated these challenges. Science mobility is critical for science education, training, competitiveness, and innovation. Using a representative sample of US and foreign-born scientists in three STEM fields, we explore how recent visa and immigration policies have shaped research collaborations, work with students and postdoctoral scholars, and intentions to leave. We use descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and logistic regression and find academic scientists report disruptions from visa and immigration policies; negative impacts of immigration policies on US higher education; negative effects on recruitment and retention of international trainees; and increased intentions to leave the US driven by negative perceptions of immigration policy.

Despite a robust body of literature about the choice of students' first postsecondary institution, we have little insight regarding transfer from four-year colleges and universities across socioeconomic groups. In this study, we argue that when entry to selective colleges reaches a heightened level of competitiveness, transfer may be employed by students from advantaged social backgrounds as an adaptive strategy to gain access. Using multinomial logistic regression, this study draws on data from BPS:04/09 to uncover whether transfer functions as a mechanism of adaptation that exacerbates class inequalities in higher education. We found that students from higher-socioeconomic quartiles who first enrolled in a selective institution are most likely to engage in lateral transfer, but mainly to another college even more prestigious. This study provides evidence of the role of college transfer in exacerbating class inequalities in higher education.

Given the prevalence of transfer activity, education stakeholders must understand how transfer may be associated with student outcomes. Such knowledge is critical, as the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn have impacted college enrollment and student transfer behavior. Relying on a sample of 6510 undergraduate students from BPS:12/17 data, we conducted analyses using multiple regression to examine the relationship between student transfer direction and two student outcomes: time to degree and cumulative loan debt. Further, we analyzed whether these relationships varied by income status, using adjusted gross income (AGI) as a proxy. We found that transferring from one postsecondary institution to another may extend time to degree by one academic semester and result in increased student loan debt, with these findings varying by income level.

Private nonprofit colleges are increasingly using tuition resets, or a decrease in sticker price by at least 5%, to attract new students and counter declining demand. While discounting tuition with institutional aid is a common practice to get accepted students to matriculate and to increase affordability, a tuition reset is a more transparent approach that moves colleges away from a high aid/high tuition model. The authors find minimal evidence that these policies increase student enrollment in the long run, but that there may be short-term impacts. As expected, institutional aid decreases and varies directly with the size of the sticker price reduction. The average net price students pay decreases, but this effect may be driven by changes in the estimated non-tuition elements of the total cost of attendance. Finally, net tuition revenue appears unrelated to tuition resets. These findings call into question the efficacy of this practice.

Growing demands and expectations on the side of policy makers and the public have changed the conditions for academics' engagement in public discussions. At the same time, risks related to this engagement for the professional and even private lives of academics have become apparent. Conducting a survey experiment among 4091 tenured professors in Germany, we study how these conditions causally affect academics' attitudes toward engaging. Consistent with the crowding-out of intrinsic motivation, we find less-positive attitudes when emphasizing demands for engagement by public authorities and public expectations toward science's societal relevance. Effects are particularly strong among professors endorsing science-society relations. Moreover, effects are similar when highlighting risks associated with engagement, but more pronounced for females and younger professors. Emphasizing public support for academics' engagement has no discernible effects. We conclude that considering individual incentive structures and safeguarding against negative repercussions may promote academics' engagement and an adequate representation of the diversity of academics in the public.

Using the Wabash National Study on Liberal Arts Education and a latent class analysis of 28 outside-the-classroom activities and behaviors, we developed a typology of outside-the-classroom student engagement during the first year of college. We find ten classes of student involvement: academic artist, party athlete, serious athlete, conventional non-worker, disengaged, maximizer, moderate worker, detached partier, involved partier, and religious. Next, we examine the relationship between latent classes and students' characteristics through a multinomial logistic regression analysis. Students reporting as first-generation or racially minoritized are overrepresented in the disengaged and involved partier classes. We found an overrepresentation of White students across all party classes. Students reporting as female were likelier to be members of the religious, moderate worker, and disengaged classes and not to be members of the party classes. Federal grant recipients were likelier to be in the academic artist and moderate worker classes. We discuss other sociocultural, economic, and academic relationships in the paper. Next, we explore the relationship of latent class to academic and developmental outcomes. We find academic artists as the only class with a significant positive relationship across the seven dependent measures. Involved partier, moderate worker, and religious classes have positive relationships with at least five dependent measures. The detached partier and party athlete classes have the lowest first-year GPAs of all latent classes. Finally, we discuss the relationships of latent classes, related institutional policy implications, and directions for future research.

Public two-year colleges offer an entry point to postsecondary education for many Americans who might otherwise forgo college. Most students leave college without a credential. A growing body of research examines the returns to higher education among two-year college entrants but primarily focuses on returns to credentials. This study examines the returns to different types of credits, including academic, technical, and developmental credits. In a series of individual fixed effects models, we use state administrative data following a population of public two-year college entrants to understand which college credits yield the greatest returns and how returns to credits vary across degree attainment. Our findings illustrate that average estimates of the returns to credits obscure varied patterns of returns among two-year college students, where sub-baccalaureate credential recipients appear to experience different returns to academic and technical credits compared with their peers.

Developmental education (DE) reform took place among the 28 Florida College System (FCS) institutions in 2014. In this study, we examine how cohort-based passing rates in college-level English and math courses changed at different colleges for pre- and post-policy period and explore what institutional characteristics were related with various institutional trajectories of cohort-based course passing rates in the post-policy period. Employing longitudinal data analysis, we found that colleges performed similarly regarding cohort-based passing rates in both college-level English and combined math courses before DE reform and had a similar elevation in the cohort-based English course passing rates when DE reform took place in 2014. However, colleges experienced different change patterns in the years following DE reform. Specifically, colleges located in rural areas and with more White students experienced relatively lower college-level English passing rates in the post-policy period than their counterparts. Different colleges had slight differences in the trajectory of college-level math passing rates by cohort after SB 1720 in 2014, but institutional characteristics in this study did not adequately capture inter-institutional differences.

University athletics because of its reporting structure, regulation by the NCAA, and relationship to the academic enterprise of institutions, provides a unique look into postsecondary institutional behavior. Using a difference-in-difference design, this study tests the introduction of new television networks dedicated to college sports on institutional subsidy levels for athletics. Overall, our findings show that institutions are responsive to the introduction of new college-sports-dedicated television networks. When considering institutions in the Power Five athletic conferences, we find an average decline in subsidy levels of approximately $1.2 million. When considering different types of subsidies, we find significant declines in direct subsidies and student fees, but no significant change for indirect subsidies.

Credit momentum policies, or performance-based financial aid policies, have become increasingly popular among policymakers seeking to improve degree completion rates. This paper examines Indiana's 30-credit-hour completion policy on first-time, full-time students who receive the Twenty-First Century Scholars (TFCS) Promise Program. Using administrative data from the Indiana University's University Institutional Research and Reporting, representing 7842 low-income students who enrolled shortly before the policy was implemented, I use a difference-in-differences framework to explore the heterogeneous treatment effects of a credit (academic) momentum policy that was supported by the Complete College America initiative on the academic progression and completion of promise scholarship recipients at Indiana University Bloomington and Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, compared to non-TFCS Pell recipients from the Fall 2011 cohorts through the Fall 2014 cohorts. I find some evidence to suggest that credit momentum policies are associated with small increases in cumulative credits and grades but had no effect on degree completion status (Year 4 Graduation Status, Year 6 Graduation Status). I also find evidence that TFCS female and first-generation recipients responded positively to the policy change but find no evidence that the policy affects promise recipients differently by race/ethnicity. While consistent with prior work on credit momentum, these findings are among the first to explore the academic performance of college promise recipients. Together, these findings indicate that credit momentum policies may improve academic progression and completion for low-income, first-generation students who receive a promise scholarship. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

Recent high dropout and low graduation rates in the South African higher education institutions as well as government funding cuts and the economic uncertainty due to COVID-19 pandemic have heightened the urgency for the higher education sector to improve its productivity. However, empirical evidence on the productivity growth of the sector remains unexplored. To address this gap, we applied a Färe-Primont index approach to a panel data of 22 public universities over an 8-year period to measure total factor productivity (TFP) and its components-technological change, technical, scale and mix efficiency changes. We also used a feasible generalised least squares model to assess the determinants of productivity and efficiency growth. The results show that the average TFP of the sector for the study period was 0.631, led by historically advantaged universities (0.894), whilst historically disadvantaged universities had lower average TFP (0.823). During the period, TFP increased by 3.43%, largely driven by scale and mix efficiency changes (5.32%) and technical efficiency change (0.83%), whilst technical change declined by 1.80%. In terms of university types, the comprehensive universities achieved the largest TFP growth (6.13%) followed by traditional universities (4.85%), and technology universities by 1.41%. TFP growth was positively influenced by student graduation rates, quality of academics and academic-student ratios. Therefore, policy considerations to improve the sector's productivity and efficiency should consider investment on research and development, adoption of teaching and research innovations, re-skilling through training and education and aligning admission policies with staffing.

This study's purpose is to examine whether resilience, conceptualized by Connor and Davidson (2003) as one's capacity to persevere and rebound under adversity, was a potential mitigating and/or moderating factor in the dynamic between both psychological distress and academic burnout, and student attrition. We concurrently distributed a survey containing a series of psychometric instruments to a convenience sample of 1,119 students pursuing various business majors at four geographically diverse U.S. universities. Via structural equations modeling analysis, we measured the associations between psychological distress, academic burnout, and departure intentions, and investigated whether student resilience levels are associated with lower distress, burnout, and departure intentions levels. The results indicated significant positive associations between psychological distress and each of the elements of academic burnout, and significant positive associations between the academic burnout elements and departure intentions. However, while resilience did not moderate those associations, it did attenuate them through its direct negative associations with both psychological distress and the cynicism and academic inefficacy elements of academic burnout. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for business educators seeking to enhance individual resilience levels as a coping strategy to combat voluntary student turnover, and better prepare students for the demands of the workplace.

In recent decades, female students have been more successful in higher education than their male counterparts in the United States and other industrialized countries. A promising explanation for this gender gap are differences in personality, particularly higher levels of conscientiousness among women. Using Structural Equation Modeling on data from 4719 Dutch university students, this study examined to what extent conscientiousness can account for the gender gap in achievement. We also examined whether the role of conscientiousness in accounting for the gender gap differed for students with a non-dominant ethnic background compared to students with a dominant ethnic background. In line with our expectations, we found that conscientiousness fully mediated the gender gap in achievement, even when controlling for prior achievement in high school. This was the case among both groups of students. These findings provide insight into the mechanisms underlying the gender gap in achievement in postsecondary education settings. The current study suggests that the use of conscientiousness measures in university admission procedures may disadvantage male students. Instead, the use of such measures may be a fruitful way to identify those students who may benefit from interventions to improve their conscientiousness. Future research could examine how conscientiousness can be fostered among students who are low in conscientiousness.

How are university faculty members in STEM disciplines motivated to conduct research, and how does motivation predict their success? The current study assessed how multiple types of self-determined motivation predict research productivity in a sample of 651 faculty from 10 US institutions. Using structural equation modeling, the basic psychological needs of autonomy and competence predicted autonomous motivation (enjoyment, value) that, in turn, was the strongest predictor of self-reported research productivity. Using negative binomial regression, autonomous motivation was the strongest predictor of faculty publications and citations, with a one-standard deviation increase in autonomous motivation (approximately a half response option on a 1-5 Likert scale) corresponding to an 11.63% increase in publications and a 22.57% increase in citations over a three-year period. Occupational and social-environmental background variables (e.g., research percentage on contract, career age, balance, collegiality), as well as controlled motivation (guilt, rewards), had comparatively limited predictive effects. These results are of relevance to higher education institutions aiming to support scholarly productivity in STEM faculty in identifying specific beneficial and detrimental aspects of faculty motivation that contribute to measurable gains in research activity.