Text4College is a text messaging intervention designed to help students enroll and persist in college.

This blog post uses newly released provisional data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System’s (IPEDS) Fall Enrollment (EF) survey to provide an updated look at whether beginning college students are attending school in their home state or heading elsewhere.

In collaboration with Money Magazine, researchers from AIR analyzed and ranked U.S. bachelor’s-degree granting institutions based on their quality (e.g., six-year graduation rate; value-added graduation rate), affordability (e.g., net price; debt), and value (e.g., earnings; social mobility) to help families navigate the postsecondary decision-making process.

This journal article explores whether community college websites are a useful medium for providing knowledge relevant to degree completion. The findings suggest that participants frequently encountered problems with finding and understanding information about degree selection and completion. The content analysis of these problems yields recommendations for improving the usability of community college websites for answering common questions about degree completion.

This report examines the costs associated with a sample of Early College High Schools and compares them to the costs of traditional high schools in the same or surrounding districts.

This commentary from the Chronicle of Higher Education features remarks from AIR senior researcher Kelle Parsons on enrollment resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic among competency-based education programs.

This journal article used a systematic review methodology to identify and summarize findings from studies that examined the effects of losing grant aid due to policy changes and students’ failure to meet renewal requirements. The studies reviewed show negative effects on student outcomes when grant aid was reduced or eliminated.

This study from the CALDER Center examines the short-, medium-, and long-term effects of remedial courses in middle school using a regression discontinuity design. While the short-term test score benefits of taking a remedial course in English language arts in middle school fade quickly, the study found significant positive effects on the likelihood of taking college credit-bearing courses in high school, college enrollment, enrolling in more selective colleges, persistence in college, and degree attainment.

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are important for diversifying the science technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce. This study aims to develop a scale to understand the experiences of HBCU STEM students to spur research on the factors associated with HBCUs’ success with recruiting, retaining, and graduating Black STEM students. Nearly 3,000 undergraduate STEM students across 30 HBCUs participated in this study. The authors conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to examine the construct validity. The survey had a seven-factor structure with a comparative fit index of 0.9 and high reliability with Cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0.68-0.91. Five factors significantly predicted student outcomes, indicating predictive validity. The resulting survey, HBCU Student STEM Success Survey, provides a reliable and valid measure for HBCU STEM students’ experiences.

This webinar series shows how to use data to demonstrate the value of competency-based education programs for students, campus leaders, policymakers, and other stakeholders.