Don Hossler

• Managing Director at Indiana University Bloomington

This qualitative case study explores how undergraduate students from the Russian State University for Humanities used social network sites (SNSs) for their decision to transfer to higher education institutions (HEIs) abroad. Participants reported using specific SNS features, such as likes and shares, for measuring HEI rating and indicated that abil...

How colleges make admissions decisions at four-year institutions is facing high levels of scrutiny. Students, families, and policymakers are asking how offices of admissions decide to admit students. Increasing numbers of institutions are becoming test optional and/or using holistic admissions schemes, but little is known about how decisions are ma...

Performance-based funding (PBF) for public colleges and universities is increasingly prevalent worldwide, as a part of a broader pattern of marketisation in public education. This study focused on developing an empirical view of how, and in what contexts, policy makers use the concepts of neoliberal economics to design and support Performance-Based...

This study aims to understand the role of financial aid in college success of two-year beginning nontraditional students. By applying discrete time event history models with propensity score covariate adjustment to a nationally representative sample from BPS: 04/09, this study answers research questions centering around the effects of Pell Grants,...

Building on a history of partnering with higher education thought leaders, the College Board has launched the Future Admissions Tools and Models Initiative to study and improve the practice of admission, with a special focus on holistic and individualized review, in order to expand student access and success. Developed and structured as a partnersh...

The use of merit criteria in awarding institutional aid has grown considerably and, some argue, is supplanting need as the central factor in awarding aid. Concurrently, the accountability movement in higher education has placed greater emphasis on retention and graduation as indicators of institutional success and quality. In this context, this stu...

Our study adds to prior work on Indiana's Twenty-first Century Scholars(TFCS) program by focusing on whether participating in-rather than completing-the program affects the likelihood of students going to college and where they initially enrolled. We first employ binary and multinomial logistic regression to obtain estimates of the impact of the pr...

The question of how the government can best support access to postsecondary education has become a critical issue for education policymakers around the globe, as the practice of cost sharing for funding postsecondary education has been more widely adopted. In this context, this study explores the approaches to implementing current need-based financ...

Colleges and universities put significant resources toward improving student retention, yet they have had to conduct much of this activity in isolation. Although knowing more about retention efforts across the country would almost certainly support better decisions and practices in this area, it has long remained difficult for colleges and universi...

Using literature and illustrations drawn from a pilot study, this article explores the theoretical and methodological challenges entailed in the study of student retention. We center the discussion around two important efforts to expand the theoretical base and scope for research in this area: Berger's (2000) concept of colleges and universities as...

For more than 3 decades, scholars and practitioners have speculated on the extent to which financial aid increases the odds of students completing their degrees. While the impact of financial aid on persistence has been studied a great deal, we know relatively little about the impact of aid on graduation. This chapter provides a comprehensive revie...

The Indiana Project on Academic Success and the College Board Pilot Study on Student Retention evaluated the effectiveness of a variety of approaches to student retention. The authors share empirically grounded insights gleaned from this research.

The array of admissions models and the underlying, and sometimes conflicting goals people have for college admissions, create the dynamics and the tensions that define the contemporary context for enrollment management. The senior enrollment officer must ask, for example, how does an institution try to assure transparency, equality of access, devel...

Federal higher education policy has shifted over the past few decades from grants to loans as the primary means for providing access to postsecondary education for low and moderate-income families. With this shift, policy makers have begun tracking student loan default rates as a key indicator of the efficacy of student loan programs. This effort r...

Merit Aid and the Politics of Education is a timely and relevant contribution to the study of state financial aid policy and higher education governance. Eric Ness provides an excellent synthesis of the political process that three states (New Mexico, West Virginia, and Tennessee) went through when designing their merit-based scholarship programs....

This chapter explores how an institution-affiliated but grant-funded independent research office developed a statewide student record database for institutional research studies.

Among all the students who transfer from one institution to another during their academic careers, a distinct group of “reverse transfer” students has emerged over time. Reverse transfer occurs when students begin their college careers at 4-year institutions but eventually transfer into 2-year institutions. Using student unit record data from the s...

Enrollment management has become an important leadership function on many college and university campuses. It is also attracting critical attention here and abroad among observers of the system of postsecondary education. With this essay, the authors continue a series that examines policies and practices that are central to campus-based efforts to...

Enrollment management has become an important leadership function on many college and university campuses. It is also attracting critical attention here and abroad among observers of our system of postsecondary education. With this essay, "College and University" begins a series that will examine policies and practices that are central to campus-ba...

The hidden dimensions of leadership and of the costs associated with the implementation of new information systems should be carefully considered. They can help determine the short- and long-term success of new systems.

This study examines the effects of institutional fi nancial aid on year-to-year persistence for a cohort of fi rst-time, fi rst-year students at three large, doctorate-granting public universities. Though bil- lions of dollars are spent each year on institutional aid, much of the research to date on student persistence does not consider its effects...

The importance and attention given to information systems are relatively new phenomena in the history of higher education. This chapter documents the ascendancy of information systems in the scheme of institutional priorities and considers the strengths and weaknesses associated with vended and homegrown systems.

There has been very little previous evaluation research that examines the effects of interventions on persistence.

Enrollment management requires both broad perspectives and focus to be successful.

This chapter presents definitions of policy, explains the policy process, and offers suggestions on how campus administrators can shape the development of educational policy.

This critique summarizes a recent examination of studies of campus-based retention efforts and also considers what is known about the roles and responsibilities of retention coordinators on college and university campuses. The paper closes with a call for more research on campus-based retention efforts and for a closer look at the management of ret...

The Journal of Higher Education 77.3 (2006) 553-557 In the last decade, there has been a dramatic expansion of non–school-based programs to provide information, support, and encouragement for low-income and first-generation youth to pursue postsecondary education. Indeed, the evolution of a myriad of local and regional postsecondary educational enc...

The college-choice process is complex and affects many high school students, family members and public policy-makers, as well as institutions of higher education. This report provides an overview of the college-choice process for traditional-age students and examines how it has evolved during the last half of the 20th century. Material from the Col...

As higher education searches for new technological methods, it should not overlook traditional methods of recruitment.

Incl. bibl., index.

This article is the second of a two-part series that examines the utility of higher education research to help guide campus-based interventions to enhance institutional effectiveness. This second article outlines programmatic efforts undertaken to enhance the quality of the first-year experience for new students. It also describes the impact of the...

This is the first of two articles that examine the utility of higher education research to help guide campus-based interventions to enhance institutional effectiveness. This first article describes the organizational context and sequence of events, which set the stage for the interventions that were implemented at this public research university. I...

This study focuses on the correlates of student preference for private institutions over public institutions in their senior year in high school, with a particular focus on the effects of students'' subjective responses to tuition costs and to financial aid availability. The data for this study were drawn from a longitudinal study of postsecondary...

The strategic use of campus-based financial aid has become an integral part of enrollment management strategies. This chapter examines how colleges and universities are using financial aid to achieve enrollment and financial objectives.

Explores how college rankings may be having a negative effect on higher education, since something as simple as technical changes in the formula for ranking may vary a college's computer ranking from year-to-year. Suggests that attention needs to be given to what really matters about the college experience, that is, what students put into their exp...

This study focuses on predictors of student sensitivity to college tuition and financial aid in their college choice process. Data were drawn from a longitudinal study on the postsecondary education choices of high school students in the state of Indiana. The variables student and family background, student academic characteristics, student percept...

Using multivariate statistical techniques and selected interviews this study explores relationships between tuition levels at public institutions, state subsidies for public institutions, and state financial aid programs. Results indicate few states are systematically addressing issues of affordability. There are no statistical relationships betwee...

The author shares personal reflections as he worked through research questions associated with court-ordered attempts to integrate state-supported, historically black universities in Alabama. The study illustrates the difficulty of talking about race and racial discrimination history, suggests that some black colleges may have to desegregate to rem...

Compared development of postsecondary education plans of African American and White ninth graders, vs variables of the Hossler/Gallagher Three Phase Model of College Choice. Subjects were from 2,930 households with students attending 21 Indiana high schools. Results indicate the variables were more predictive for Whites than African Americans, and...

A survey of 297 college-bound high school seniors and parents examined techniques for gathering information about postsecondary education and institutions. Students were designated as "highly diversified" or "less diversified" searchers; background characteristics and information-gathering behaviors of each were identified. High diversification was...

The limited research available and the observations and experiences of admissions officers suggest that guidebooks and ratings have a small to negligible impact on most students considering colleges and universities.

Tinto postulates that students enter college with expectations. If these expectations are unmet, there is early disenchantment with the social and academic communities. Such disenchantments hinder academic and social integration which, in turn, influence subsequent institutional and goal commitments and ultimately student departure. These formulati...

Using longitudinal data from students and parents, this article examines factors associated with parental saving for postsecondary education. Logistic regression was used to analyze survey data. Additionally, interviews were conducted with a subsample of participants. Results suggest SES, student aspirations, and parental information about postseco...

A longitudinal study compared Indiana ninth graders (n=178) with and without postsecondary education plans. Results indicate decided and undecided students can be differentiated by the amount of time spent thinking about postsecondary options, amount of information received regarding those options, academic achievement, and student and parent educa...

The objectives of this study were to review the current literature on status attainment and student college choice and to develop and test a structural model of predisposition to attend college. Family and student background characteristics, parents’ educational expectations for students, level of student involvement in school, and student achievem...

The authors demonstrate that subgroups of practitioners, created according to professional education and experience levels, differ significantly in their cognitive, discursive, and applied uses of student development theory.

This study examined a longitudinal data set (9th through 12th grade students from Indiana) to pose questions about the importance students place on certain college and university attributes as part of their college choice process. Using factor analysis, analysis of variance, and discriminant analysis on data about a representative sample of 110 stu...

Conducted five-year study of the various choices students (n=4,923) must make at each grade level in high school to make solid decisions about which college or university to attend. Findings revealed that parents played important role in formation of students' educational aspirations and in decisions about saving for a postsecondary education. (NB)

A small liberal arts college's program of home visits for recruitment and admissions was evaluated. Forty students and several parents receiving home visits were classified by grades and eventual enrollment in the college, then surveyed. Results indicate the visits were the reason most applied. However, other factors were more strongly related to t...

Analysis of data from a longitudinal study of Indiana high school students (n=56) reveals that parents are more interested than students in information about postsecondary education costs and student financial aid. It also suggests efforts to increase family knowledge should focus on general information rather than specific aid programs. (Author/MS...

The book provides an examination of research and practice related to enrollment management at institutions of higher education. Part 1 describes enrollment management in the context of strategic planning and presents four organizational approaches. Part 2 focuses on marketing and student recruitment, while Part 3 considers student retention. Finall...

This study examined a model of college student choice for male and female ninth graders using LISREL. A sample of 703 male students and 718 female students and their parents responded to two sets of questionnaires regarding high school experiences and expectations about college. Endogenous variables examined included parents'' expectation regarding...

Research synthesis has been used increasingly to integrate knowledge. Quantitative techniques, however, present special problems. Using Glaser and Strauss (1975) as a model, the authors developed a grounded meta-analytic technique to compare organizational interventions derived from rational-based strategies (MBO, planned change, etc.) with organiz...

The influence of student problems, which are often cited by students as reasons for withdrawal, is compared with the influence of constructs derived from Tinto''s student attrition model. The findings suggest that data from post-hoc attrition studies should be used cautiously.

Two independent bodies of organizational theory and research are developing around separate concepts associated with organizational effectiveness: goal-based behavior (intention) and organizational climate (distinction). Although both variables have been found to influence organizational effectiveness, findings have been inconsistent. The term "int...

This study sought to establish baseline data on the outcomes of doctoral education at a private, urban university. Through the use of a survey instrument developed by the researchers, Ph.D. and Ed.D. recipients from 16 departments who had graduated between 1963 and 1984 were contacted. Three primary areas were examined: (1) the impact of doctoral e...

The principles and common practices of enrollment management efforts in colleges and universities are outlined, and institutional conditions favoring effective enrollment management are discussed. (MSE)

A model of the decision-making process for college choice that has three phases (predisposition, search, and choice) is proposed, and the implications of this model for college and government policy formation are examined. (MSE)

Enrollment and graduation data may help us understand the development and vitality of graduate programs in higher education. The authors of this “On-going Dialogue” essay analyze graduation statistics from higher education programs and ask some hard questions about the field.

An attempt was made to determine if high school seniors based their decision to pursue a college education upon cost-benefit considerations. The sample of 409 male and 319 female seniors attended 12 high schools in the greater Los Angeles area. A questionnaire asked the students to: indicate their plans after high school; report the importance of a...

engaging in practice- and policy-oriented research on student success in higher education Federal higher education policy began to shift its emphasis from grants to loans as a means of providing financial assistance to low- and moderate- income students as early as the mid-1970s. The reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA) in 1980 with th...

Abstract ,This paper examines the effects of campus-based aid on student persistence. Much of the research to date on student persistence does not consider the effects of financial aid on student departure. Most of the studies thathave considered the effects of financial aid on persistence have only had access to the amounts,of state and federal fi...

A large majority of American families and state and institu-tional policymakers believe everyone in a modern society should obtain some form of postsecondary education and training. Indeed, a college degree continues to be viewed as the most certain path to personal fulfillment and economic success, and the decisions students make about their post-...