The authors used cross-classified hierarchical generalized linear modeling to examine predictors of enrolling in college due to being admitted through an early decision or early action program in a national dataset of 88,086 students. Although research has investigated the types of institutions that tend to offer early action and early decision programs, the types of students who apply to these programs, and the types of high schools that they come from, no prior study has examined these three contexts simultaneously.

By comparing and contrasting the civic functions adopted by and ascribed to Bowdoin College and Stanford University during their founding decades, this study contends that the social ethos guiding colleges and universities’ institutional priorities, as well as students’ reasons for engaging in higher learning, changed between 1794 (the year of Bowdoin’s founding) and 1885 (the year Stanford was established), resulting in a modification of what we might today call higher education’s institutional mission.

This article uses data from descriptive case studies of 15 high schools in five states to explore students’ perceptions and expectations of student financial aid and the contextual forces that influence these perceptions and expectations.

Although the historical and contemporary contributions of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to educating college-going African American students are well documented, such analysis often neglects to highlight the male student role or perspective. This article presents a review and critique of past and contemporary HBCU research focusing explicitly on African American men, with the hope of recentering the gendered dialogue.

Focusing on students aged 19 and 20 who lived with their parents and commuted from home, this study examines the shifting patterns of college access from 1960 and 1980, when commuters became the largest category of beginning college students. Using various sources of information, including data from IPUMS and NCES, this study finds that for most American youth, going to college appears to have remained a solidly middle- and upper-class phenomenon, even in commuter institutions.

In the present review of recent empirical research, the authors point to ways by which meditation may complement the traditional goals of the academy by helping to develop traditionally valued academic skills as well as help to build important emotional and interpersonal capacities that foster psychological well-being and the development of the “whole person.”

Class attendance and out-of-class study time are known to be strongly associated with student success. The paper examines two other uses of time as influences on academic outcomes in college: those devoted to active engagements with friends and community as opposed to passive entertainments, and those that connect students to campus life rather than separating them from campus life. Controlling for students’ socio-demographic backgrounds, previous academic achievements, and social psychological stressors, we find that “activating” uses of time are associated with higher levels of academic conscientiousness and, through academic conscientiousness, with higher GPAs. However, uses of time that connect students to campus life show inconsistent effects.

This article contrasts the home study activities of two major universities, Columbia and Wisconsin, with the business practices of the proprietary vendors who dominated the large market for correspondence courses in the 1920s and 1930s.

This case study of two women teachers who had a sexual relationship with a student focuses on how and why they crossed ethical and professional boundaries. Implications for a distinction between erotic and abusive pedagogies are considered.

This article examines the efforts to unionize college faculty in the years immediately after World War I. It demonstrates that despite some educators’ beliefs that professorial unionization offered the possibility of real change for faculty members and larger society, external opposition, internal divisions, and faculty apathy ultimately doomed these early efforts to organize American Federation of Teachers locals on college campuses.

This article examines the role of academic preparation in the transition from community colleges to four-year institutions, and, in particular, the ability of community colleges to mitigate the negative effects of inadequate academic preparation.

This article provides an overview of gender inequalities in the transition to college and in college experiences by examining the ways that women are advantaged in higher education and the arenas where they still trail men. It also discusses theoretical perspectives useful in assessing the causes of gender inequality and then suggests how future research could advance our understanding of the complex nature of gender inequality in higher education.

This article provides an overview of a set of articles in this special issue that synthesize current research and provide future directions for research, both conceptually and methodologically, on gender, socioeconomic, and language-minority differences in college transitions, as well as a review of college transitions research in the discipline of human development. It concludes with an example of policy analysis research on college transitions, focusing on 2-year to 4-year college articulation policies. These reviews provide a foundation for further research, policy making, and programmatic action to improve the college transition pathways for all youth, particularly those for whom college-going opportunities are most challenging because of demographic and economic conditions.

This article focuses on the transition to college of English learner and undocumented immigrant students in the United States. The synthesis of research reveals significant challenges faced in the college transition by these two populations, discusses resource and policy implications, and provides a recommended research agenda.

This article examines the role of articulation policies in facilitating transfer from community colleges to 4-year institutions. The author synthesizes previous research, presents new empirical evidence, and concludes with recommendations for improving research and policy regarding transfer.

Callahan and Chumney use a comparative case study approach to examine the experiences and outcomes of remedial writing students enrolled in two urban public institutions: a community college and a research university. Applying Bourdieu’s theory of practice, this ethnographic study reveals that institutions further determine the advantage or disadvantage of remedial students by controlling their access to cultural capital, which is critical for navigating the field of higher education successfully.

As a result of personal experience and professional observations, our initial interest was to ascertain to what extent expertise is associated with rank. We assumed that assistant professors are by no means novices, rather, that they are less expert than professors. We wondered if explicit and differentiated expertise behaviors associated with the three primary ranks could be identified. In other words, to what extent is the acquisition of expert skill related to the progression through academic rank?

This study contributes to the longstanding debate over whether community colleges democratize education or divert students from attaining a bachelor’s degree.

The main objective of this study is to compare the effect of being a successful community college “transfer” student instead of a “rising junior” in a 4-year college on bachelor’s degree attainment. Logistic regression is used to estimate the effect of being a transfer student, and the effects and interplay of factors such as socioeconomic background and institutional selectivity on bachelor’s degree completion are estimated. The results indicate no difference in baccalaureate attainment for transfers after accounting for state-level characteristics.

This article examines students’ strong responses to a doctoral core course that sought to initiate them into the competing theoretical, epistemological, and paradigmatic complexity of contemporary educational research.

This article looks across the introduction to the Spencer Foundation’s Research Training Grant (RTG) program and the four case studies assessing program implementation and impact. It discusses the importance of institutional context and history, curricular content, financial resources, and organizational structure. The article concludes with recommendations for the preparation of education researchers in graduate schools of education.

The Research Training Grant (RTG) program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education aimed to create strong research training experiences for predissertation fellows through generous financial aid, mentored research apprenticeships, and cocurricular experiences. The article describes the aims and organization of the program and discusses strengths and challenges identified by students and faculty.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison participated with the Spencer Foundation in developing a model program for doctoral education called the Wisconsin-Spencer Doctoral Research Program (DRP). This article reports results of an evaluation of the program’s effectiveness in meeting its goals of educating selected students in interdisciplinary research and effecting change in the structure of doctoral education in participating departments. The study raises questions about the DRP’s development and implementation but concludes that the DRP was at least partially effective in meeting its goals.

Using a value-added model, the experiences and performance of nine cohorts (n = 52) of UCLA education PhD students participating in the Spencer Foundation Institutional Research Training Grant (RTG) were assessed and compared with those of a matched comparison group.

Focusing on students in the middle years of their PhD programs, the Spencer Foundation-sponsored project at Michigan State University gave priority to mentoring and participation in communities of interest in the College of Education. As the project evolved, socialization into research careers and academic life also came to play a role in activities for fellows. Thus, experiences of learning and doing research were incorporated into the intellectual, professional, and social contexts of education.

In 1994, the Spencer Foundation embarked on an ambitious experimental initiative to support the preparation of education researchers. This article traces the development of the Research Training Grant program, situating it in the longstanding commitment of the Spencer Foundation to promote high-quality education research and describing the purposes and practices of the program. Threaded through the discussion are endemic problems of doing research in education and the problems of schools of education in research universities, and the consequences that these both have for doctoral training in education schools.

Recent educational policy developments have sought to raise the academic rigor of students’ high school experiences to increase student preparation for postsecondary education. The expansion of credit-based transition programs (CBTPs), both in number and in the type of student served, represents one such strategy. The research question guiding this study was, Through what mechanisms might credit-based transition programs encourage student success in postsecondary education? Five in-depth qualitative case studies were conducted. The case study data demonstrated that our initial conceptual model oversimplified program structure and the interaction among program components. The model was refined to reflect that complexity and to take student motivation into account. The final model hypothesizes that student participation in college coursework and support services, along with the attendant growth in academic skills, knowledge of the social aspects of college, and motivation, will lead students to matriculate into postsecondary education.

This analytical review of the major findings of research on the transition to college emphasizes those studies conducted by higher education researchers. The specific areas covered are college preparation, college access, persistence, and college outcomes. Also discussed are methodological and conceptual shortcomings of this body of work, and how further research might be improved.

This article explores what historical scholarship might contribute to advocates for equal access to higher education. Historians of college access have analyzed the impact that institutional stratification, segregation, and broader structural forces have had on college enrollments and outcomes. Although connections between past and present are suggestive rather than definitive, the article concludes by sketching tentative historical lessons about topics such as student preparation, admissions standards, and state intervention in higher education.