Tatiana Melguizo

Comparing the Educational Attainment of Community College Transfer Students and Four-Year College Rising Juniors Using Propensity Score Matching Methods

The main objective of this study is to test whether junior-level four-year college students who initially attended a community college have similar educational outcomes as college juniors who only attended a four-year college. The results suggest that there are no differences in the outcomes of community college transfers and rising juniors.

Remedial/Developmental Education and the Cost of Community College Transfer: A Los Angeles County Sample

This study calculates and explores the total costs of a community college education prior to transfer to a four-year college. Included are all courses both at and below the college level by 411 students who attended one of the nine community colleges in the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) and who successfully transferred to a four-year institution. The main finding is that students with deep developmental needs averaged five years at the community college before transferring, and transferred only one years worth of college-level courses. Of concern is the great number of African American and Latino students in remedial courses.

Transfer Access from Community Colleges and the Distribution of Elite Higher Education

This study investigates the contribution of community college transfers to the socioeconomic diversity of elite colleges and universities. We find that elite institutions enroll few transfers and, among them, few are low-income students from community colleges. Transfer primarily serves middle- and high-income students as a route to elite institutions.

A Review of the Theories Developed to Describe the Process of College Persistence and Attainment

A review of the peer-reviewed papers in the top higher education journals in the last 20 years suggests that the field is relying heavily on Tinto’s (1993, Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press) theory of student departure. The fact that there is limited empirical support for Tinto’s theory (Braxton, Sullivan, & Johnson, 1997, Handbook of Theory and Research, 12, 107–164) suggests the need to expand the theoretical grounding of the field, and use a broader set of theories or conceptual frameworks. The main objective of this study is to provide a thorough review of the different theories and conceptual frameworks that have been developed and/or applied in education, economics, sociology, and psychology to study the process of college persistence and attainment. The chapter contributes to the literature by providing an in-depth description of the theories that have been developed in other social sciences in the last four decades. This review would hopefully encourage scholars and graduate students in the field to expand the theoretical grounding and as a result address a broader set of research questions that need to be explored to gain a better understanding of the complexities of the process of college persistence and attainment.

Are Students of Color More Likely to Graduate From College if They Attend More Selective Institutions? Evidence From a Cohort of Recipients and Nonrecipients of the Gates Millennium Scholarship Program

The study takes advantage of the nontraditional selection process of the Gates Millennium Scholars (GMS) program to test the association between selectivity of 4-year institution attended as well as other noncognitive variables on the college completion rates of a sample of students of color. The results of logistic regression and propensity score matching suggest these students are slightly more likely to graduate from college if they attend a highly selective institution. There is also evidence that other noncognitive variables such as leadership are good predictors of college completion. This suggests that admission offices interested in attracting a more diverse student body might want to consider expanding the traditional admission criteria.

Is Developmental Education Helping Community College Students Persist? A Critical Review of the Literature:

There is considerable debate about the effects and benefits of developmental/basic skills/remediation education in college. Proponents argue that it enables poorly prepared high school students to attain the necessary preparation to succeed in college while critics contend that the benefits of remediation are not clear. The main objective of the article is to provide a critical review of the literature on the impact of developmental math on the educational outcomes and persistence of community college students. The authors first describe three types of summative quantitative evaluations. The authors then review a number of studies that have used these techniques to evaluate the impact of developmental math on a number of educational outcomes of community college students nationwide. In the last section, the authors propose the use of regression discontinuity (RD) design as a feasible evaluation tool that institutional researchers at community colleges can use to identify the level (i.e., number of levels below college level courses), subpopulations (i.e., gender, race/ ethnicity, and age), and institutions (i.e., multicampus district) that are doing a better job in teaching the developmental courses needed to persist in college.

How Are Community College Students Assessed and Placed in Developmental Math?: Grounding Our Understanding in Reality

Examining current assessment and placement policies (A&P) used to assign students to a developmental math sequence in the Los Angeles Community College District, this study finds that faculty and administrators lack the technical expertise and resources necessary to ensure that A&P policies facilitate student success.

How Can Placement Policy Improve Math Remediation Outcomes? Evidence From Experimentation in Community Colleges:

Changing placement policy may help to improve developmental education student outcomes in community colleges, but there is little understanding of the impacts of these reforms. We take advantage of heterogeneous placement policy in a large urban community college district in California to compare the effects of math remediation under different policy contexts. District colleges either switched from using math diagnostics to using computer-adaptive tests, or raised placement cutoffs. We use quasi-experimental methods to identify the impact of remediation under each policy and the change in impact following placement policy experimentation. We find that switching to a computer-adaptive test exacerbated the penalty of remediation for marginal students and resulted in more placement errors. Modestly raising placement cutoffs had no significant effects.

Credit for Low-Income Students and Access to and Academic Performance in Higher Education in Colombia: A Regression Discontinuity Approach

This study evaluates the impact of a national level subsidized loan program, ACCES, on a number of higher education outcomes (i.e., increase in enrollment rates, decrease in dropout rates, and increase in academic performance) of low-income students in Colombia. We use national level data along with a regression discontinuity design to estimate the impact of the program. The results confirm that the program was effective in terms of increasing the potential number of low-income students at the margin who would have enrolled in college, decreasing the number of students who dropped out, and increasing their academic outcomes.

The association between having access to computers and Internet and educational achievement for primary students in Brazil

This study tests the association between having home access to a computer and to the Internet and the educational achievement of primary students on a standardized test in Brazil for the years 2007-2011. The results show a significant (both practical and statistical) benefit of owning a computer for 5th and 9th graders. The effect sizes range from 0.2 to 0.4 and are similar across different socioeconomic status. On the other hand, the correlation between having access to the Internet with higher test scores is generally smaller and highly dependent on the socioeconomic status of the students family, varying from 0.2 to -0.2. This study also points out to a weaker evidence that there is an increase of the positive effects of owning a computer and access to Internet over time, which may explain some of the divergent results in the literature. Survey of 7 million Brazilian 5th and 9th grade students.Effect size of 0.2-0.4 for computer ownership independent of socioeconomic status.Effect size cannot be explained away by increase wealth or family education within each SES.Effect size of Internet at home depends on the SES of families.