Deborah Faye Carter

Latino student transition to college: Assessing difficulties and factors in successful college adjustment

The primary purpose of this study is to understand the factors that affect Latino student adjustment in the first and second year of college. The study examines data from a national, longitudinal survey along with the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire completed by Latino students judged to have high potential for success upon entering a variety of four-year colleges. Results show dimensions of the campus climate affect all forms of student adjustment, as do transitional experiences that are common to most students in the first year. Implications of the findings suggest further college programming and monitoring of adjustment in the second year of college.

Diversity, College Costs, and Postsecondary Opportunity: An Examination of the Financial Nexus between College Choice and Persistence for African Americans and Whites

Historically, federal student aid focused on expanding financial access for low-income students, but this goal is no longer central to federal policy. This article examines how the financial reasons for choosing a college and the actual costs of attending college influence persistence by African Americans and Whites. It reveals diverse patterns of educational choice with continuities across the choice sequence. African Americans were more adversely influenced by grant inadequacy than Whites were. These findings support the argument that the decline in federal grants was a contributing factor to the gap in postsecondary opportunity that opened after 1980.

College Students’ Degree Aspirations: A Theoretical Model and Literature Review With a Focus on African American and Latino Students

Quite a few comprehensive studies on undergraduate experiences and general models of degree attainment and attrition have highlighted the importance of measuring educational aspirations. Many researchers theorize that student educational aspirations have strong effects on (or strong relationships with) a variety of outcomes, particularly college choice, student retention, and graduate school enrollment (Astin, 1977; Tinto, 1993