The Impact of a Program for the Disadvantaged on Student Retention.
This study compares the freshman to sophomore retention rate for all freshmen at a medium-sized college to the retention rate for freshmen who participated in a program for disadvantaged students. The retention rate (over a three-year period) was nearly identical for the two groups. That finding is an indicator of the benefits of the special program, given that the students who participated in the program had lower SAT scores, lower high school grade point averages, and lower family incomes compared to all freshmen at the college. Based on previous research in the area of student retention, one would clearly expect a significantly higher freshman to sophomore retention rate for the larger group. Furthermore, a comparison of logistic regression models shows that the retention of the student population in general was influenced to a greater degree by demographic, academic, and financial factors than was the retention of the smaller group. ********** Many programs aimed at achieving equal opportunity in education had their beginnings in the Higher Education Act of 1965. One program created was Student Support Services (SSS), formerly known as Special Services for Disadvantaged Students. As described by McCants (2002), the program is aimed at helping low-income and first generation college students and individuals with disabilities graduate from college. Services provided include assistance with obtaining financial aid, special instruction, and academic and non-academic counseling. A medium-sized, private, liberal arts college in the Northeast provided these free services for twenty years to eligible students with the help of funding from the U.S. Department of Education. To participate in the program, a student needed to meet one or more of the following criteria: neither parent graduated from a four-year college; the family's taxable income was below a level mandated by the federal government; the student had a physical or learning disability. Among the specific services provided to students participating in the program were personal, academic, and financial aid counseling, help with study skills, tutoring, career planning, peer mentoring, and exposure to cultural enrichment activities. In this study, we examine data for a recent three year period. Of specific interest is a comparison of the freshman to sophomore retention rate for the group of students participating in the special program to that for all students enrolled in the college during that same time period. Results and Discussion Table I below presents some important data characteristics for the two sets of students: From Table I, we see that the overall retention rate was nearly identical for the two sets of students, but that outcome speaks very highly for the program for the disadvantaged students for several reasons: Both the average SAT score and the average high school GPA for students participating in the program were significantly lower than the same measures for the student body as a whole. There is consistent evidence in the literature that student grades, achievement, or academic performance have an overwhelming positive correlation with persistence (St. John, 1989; St. John, 1990; St. John, Kirshstein, & Noel, 1991; Mallette & Cabrera, 1991; Cabrera, Nora, and Castaneda, 1992; Perna, 1997; Tinto, 1997; Murtaugh, Burns, & Schuster, 1999; St. John, Hu, Simmons & Musoba, 2001). The overwhelming majority of students participating in the special program were in the two lowest income categories under consideration, whereas there was a fairly even distribution among income categories when looking at all freshmen. It has been often revealed that students from families with larger incomes tend to persist more than students from families with lower incomes (St. John, 1989; Cabrera, Stampen, & Hanson, 1990; St. …