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An Integrated Model of Application, Admission, Enrollment, and Financial Aid
... The student choice models give rise to alternative measures of demand for college, including whether the student submitted standardized test scores to an institution, applied for admission, or actually enrolled (DesJardins et al., 2006;Toutkoushian, 2001a). The demand for college may then be expressed as a function of personal characteristics of the student such as gender, race, age, and academic ability, characteristics of the student's family (typically parental education and income), and attributes of the institution. ...
... Frenette (2006) likewise examined whether the distance to the nearest college in Canada was related to the probability of a student going to college. Other studies including Mattern andWyatt (2009) andDesJardins et al. (2006) focused on the distance between a student and the specific institution that they attended. Finally, a distinction could be made between distance to the college attended versus distance to a college applied. ...
... A similar approach was used in studies of out of state migration based on the ZIP codes of population centers (Cooke & Boyle, 2011;McHugh & Morgan, 1984). When the specific home address of the student was available (DesJardins et al., 2006), studies could better identify the distance from each student's home to their institution. ...
One issue that has received little attention is how students factor distance from home into their decisions about college. In this study, we used data from the Education Longitudinal Survey of 2002 (ELS:02) to examine the distances between a student’s home and the colleges to which they applied, and how far from home they enrolled. We focused on how demand- and supply-side factors were related to the distances applied and enrolled. We tested the sensitivity of our findings to alternative ways of measuring the supply of postsecondary education within commuting distance, and identified factors associated with differences between a student’s application and enrollment distances. Finally, we used quantile regression analysis to determine if the associations between demand- and supply-side factors and distances applied and enrolled varied along the distance distributions.
... Hossler and Gallagher (1987) depict choice as unfolding in an interactive process in which "the preferences of the applicant, the attributes of the college or university, and the courtship procedures appear to determine the outcome" (p. 216) as illustrated in (DesJardins et al., 2006). The authors conceive of courtship activities -merit aid awards and yield-recruitment-as being highly consequential in the enrollment decision and suggest non-aid courtship activities (e.g., recruitment events) "may be as important as actual financial aid awards" (Hossler & Gallagher, 1987, p. 217). ...
... Despite efforts by researchers to improve college choice predictions for Black and Latina/o students' enrollment decision by integrating sociological constructs and institutional factors (Perna, 2000(Perna, ,2006, these analyses are still very much grounded in an economic theoretical perspective. This slant to prevailing theory is not inherently problematic, and finances are undoubtedly influential in student choice (Avery & Hoxby, 2004;DesJardins, Ahlburg, & McCall, 2006;Kim, 2004;Kim et al., 2009;Perna, 2006Perna, , 2008. ...
... I also included staff from the Office of Financial Aid since it works in tandem with admissions. In addition, the awarding of aid-particularly scholarships and grants-is among the most critical mechanisms for yielding students (Avery & Hoxby, 2004;DesJardins et al., 2006;Kim et al., 2009). Conducts recruitment and yield to increase awareness around financial aid options for prospective and admitted students. ...
Highly selective public institutions affected by affirmative action bans have struggled to enroll Black students despite myriad attempts at alternative strategies. Bans likely shift university recruitment practices and shape both campus climate and portrayals of institutional commitment to diversity. Increasingly public racial incidents on college campuses suggest the possibility that Black students’ underrepresentation in selective post-affirmative action contexts may also be a function of choice—Black students’ decision to opt out of institutions they do not perceive to be diverse or inclusive. I conducted an in-depth case study focusing on practices used to encourage Black student enrollment as well as Black students’ appraisals of institutional commitment to diversity and racial climate—both underexplored—as a way to understand the enrollment decisions of Black students admitted to the University of Michigan, a battleground for affirmative action. Guided by an interdisciplinary framework that incorporates models of college choice and social identity theories, including social identity threat and racial identity and concentrating on the yield stage of the admissions cycle, I interviewed 35 Black students (15 enrolled at U-M; 20 enrolled elsewhere) and 16 university professionals across four departments engaged in yield recruitment. I also observed 23 hours of yield events. From the institutional perspective, I found that enrollment professionals were engaged in impression management—efforts to shape admitted Black students’ positive impressions of the university, particularly with respect to diversity and climate. Targeted yield recruitment events and activities were one set of tactics to manage Black students’ impressions. The discourse used in those events represented another set of tactics. Perhaps signaling compliance with the state’s affirmative action ban and awareness of the hostile climate for race-conscious policy, “diversity” was referred to broadly and communicated differently depending on the racial/ethnic identity of the enrollment professional as well as the demographic make-up of the student audience. My findings from the student perspective highlight how Black students’ perceptions of key race and diversity cues from the campus context they encountered during their recruitment experiences were significant in shaping their appraisals of the University of Michigan. The majority of participants expressed concern about the small size of the Black undergraduate population and perceived some level of potential threat (e.g., discrimination and racism) associated with their racial identity. However, among the 20 non-enrollees, only in a few instances were their impressions about diversity or racial climate the deciding factor in their decision to decline admission from the University of Michigan. Among the sample of enrollees, a large portion acknowledged their apprehensions about student racial diversity but still opted to enroll, citing their intention to leverage Black student organizations and cultivate community with same-race peers in order to mitigate potential threats and successfully navigate the stressful campus environment as a Black student. Findings have theoretical implications for understanding the complex interplay between racial identity and consciousness of institutional barriers in college choice. Findings also have implications for enrollment management practices and efforts to increase the representation of Black students in selective, post-affirmative action contexts and in predominantly white institutions, broadly. By highlighting the recruitment activities undertaken to yield Black students and the individual perspectives of Black admitted students, the study also contributes to a small body of literature on recruitment in higher education and deepens our understanding of contemporary sociopolitical issues affecting Black students’ college choice.
... labor force (Desjardins, Ahlburg, and McCall 2006;Goldrick-Rab and Han 2011). This shift requires urgent focus on educational reentries throughout people's 20s, including the consequences for educational inequality and labor market stratification. ...
... Research on stratification in the educational system and the labor market has identified significant gender, race, and social class effects in both school leaving and reenrollment (Astone et al. 2000;DesJardins et al. 2006;Elman and O'Rand 2007;Jacob and Weiss 2010). All predictive models in this study therefore account for gender, migration background, and an indicator of social class background (father's occupational status or years of education). ...
Existing research generally confirms a countercyclical education enrollment, whereby youths seek shelter in the educational system to avoid hardships in the labor market: the “discouraged worker” thesis. Alternatively, the “encouraged worker” thesis predicts that economic downturns steer individuals away from education because of higher opportunity costs. This study provides a formal test of these opposing theories using data from the United States compared with similar sources from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden. I investigate whether macroeconomic stimuli—including recessions and youth unemployment fluctuations—matter for enrollment decisions. Analyses rely on 10 years of detailed individual-level panel data, consisting of birth cohorts across several decades. Across data sources, results show enrollment persistence in secondary education is stronger in response to economic downturns. These patterns differ sharply for tertiary-enrolled students and those who recently left higher education. Surprisingly, U.S. youths display an increased hazard of school leaving and a decreased hazard of educational reenrollment in response to adverse conditions. In contrast, European youths tend to make enrollment decisions supportive of discouraged-worker mechanisms or insensitivity to adverse conditions. The U.S.-specific encouraged-worker mechanism might be explained by the relative importance of market forces in one’s early career and the high costs of university attendance, which induces risk aversion with regard to educational investment. The discussion addresses the consequences for educational inequality.
... Theoretical models dedicated to higher education choices usually divide decisions into multiple stages, based on the complexity and competitiveness in this market (Paulsen 1990;DesJardins et al. 2006;Furquim and Glasener 2017). Due to data availability, this analysis considers only two steps ('choice between programs' and 'decision on whether to enroll'), according to the empirical model suggested by Long (2004) and Skinner (2019). ...
... This stage encompasses not only the decision but also the programs' application and admission processes, as data on these procedures are not available. This research strategy is based on the argument that students are aware of the competitive nature of admission processes and tend to apply to institutions where people with similar characteristics and levels of achievement study to increase their probability of acceptance (DesJardins et al. 2006). One of the few empirical studies that considered 'application' and 'attendance conditional on application' provide support to this research strategy, as it found that parameters in probabilistic models for both outcomes were 'remarkably similar in direction, size and significance' (Skinner 2019). ...
This paper presents an assessment of the factors associated with access to master's degree programs in Brazil, investigating whether there is evidence of inequity arising from students' personal and socioeconomic characteristics. A rich and novel dataset comprising microdata on undergraduate college graduates and new master's students is used for the empirical analysis. Students' decisions to progress to graduate education are modeled as a two-stage process, and the parameters are estimated separately for each broad academic field using a conditional logit model for the first stage, and a logistic regression analysis for the second stage. The main findings are: (a) there is strong evidence of low mobility of students starting graduate education, and they are far more likely to choose a master's degree program in the same university or close to where they graduated from college; (b) academic performance and activities during undergraduate program in college are associated with an increase in the relative odds of progressing to graduate education; (c) in most broad academic fields, no evidence that women, black or brown students, economically disadvantaged students, foreigners and people with disabilities are less likely to start a master's program is found; and (d) a significant association between the odds of enrollment and parental education is not observed in nearly all fields. The study points to different recommendations and to further research questions to understand and improve graduate education in Brazil.
... Segundo Desjardins et al. (2006), as expectativas dos alunos, tanto da modalidade presencial quanto do ensino a distância, devem ser levadas em consideração pelas IES desde a sua prospecção até as decisões internas futuras. Além disso, o conhecimento sobre as expectativas do cliente e a capacidade de uma instituição de lhe oferecer o serviço mais adequado são condições vitais para a sua retenção e lealdade (WALTER, 2006). ...
... De acordo com Desjardins et al. (2006), a expectativa do cliente deve ser considerada pelas empresas desde as decisões de curto prazo até as prospecções do planejamento futuro. Complementando essa ideia, Bergamo et al. (2007), relatam que a retenção e lealdade são fortemente influenciadas pelo conhecimento e alcance das expectativas dos clientes em relação ao serviço proposto. ...
Este estudo teve como objetivos identificar e mensurar as expectativas dos alunos em relação aos cursos superiores por eles escolhidos. Adicionalmente, o presente estudo visa apresentar uma análise comparativa entre as expectativas dos discentes de diferentes modalidades de ensino (presencial, semipresencial e à distância). Assim, foi aplicado um questionário aos alunos ingressantes de uma instituição de ensino superior localizada na cidade de Vila Velha – ES. Os resultados encontrados sugerem que os discentes de cursos presenciais apresentam concordância nas expectativas em relação a grande parte das variáveis estudadas; nos cursos semipresenciais destacam-se expectativas quanto à maior representatividade de aulas práticas no projeto pedagógico e nos cursos à distância a ligação desta modalidade com a tecnologia e o uso da internet e suas ferramentas. Foi possível evidenciar não somente que as expectativas dos alunos possuem dimensões diferentes, como também a possibilidade de descrever aspectos específicos das expectativas de acordo com cada modalidade.
... For lower-income students, their preference formation processes are often characterized by the extent to which they can gather decision-relevant information. When decision makers must act under imperfect information, rational expectations theory holds that prior experiences and the information that is available dictates expectations (DesJardins, Ahlburg, & McCall, 2006). A mismatch between expectations and reality influences behavior by filtering the opportunities that an individual deems worthwhile (Bandura, 1982;Feldman, 1981). ...
... These students are often unsure of how to adequately prepare for college and are less likely to receive sufficient counseling on admissions requirements (Venezia, Kirst, & Antonio 2003). DesJardins et al. (2006) hypothesize that students form their college choice set based on where they believe they could be admitted and reasonably afford. However, students and families who are the least able to pay for college are the most likely to lack accurate information about cost of attendance (Horn, Chen, & Chapman, 2003). ...
... Additionally, some studies have identified the impact of financial incentives as a significant factor on student choice. For instance, DesJardins, Ahlburg, and McCall (2006) propose a model that includes financial aid as an important factor in college choice. Table 1 provides a summary of the entire student choice model discussed in this section. ...
... DesJardins, Ahlburg, and McCall (2006). Furthermore, the literature discussed other models like economic models, status attainment models, and information models. ...
The rising cost of getting a college or university degree gives millions of students
“sticker shock” each year, and paying off student debt has only grown more difficult over
time (Liberto, 2012). The College Board, a nonprofit group that runs the SAT exam,
indicates that over the past decade, the average annual tuition for community college has
risen 40% to 7,692. The escalating cost of higher education has inevitably influenced students’
choice of college or university (Felton, 2012). These high tuition costs make a college
education unaffordable for some prospective students (Kim, DesJardins, & McCall,
2009). Escalating tuition and diminishing college affordability pose financial barriers or
hardship particularly for the underprivileged student population (Ellwood & Kane, 2000;
Kim et al., 2009). In this scenario, students may be looking for colleges with financial
incentives in order to minimize student debt. In an effort to understand these trends in the
context of private institutions, this study examines the role of financial incentives in
students’ matriculation choices in selected private Michigan universities.
... As an extension of the economic models, Manski's random utility model (1977) explains that when selecting one college over other alternatives, students decide to select the one that provides the greatest utility (i.e., net benefit). These economic approaches have been particularly useful to study the relationships between finance, such as family income, tuition, and financial aid, and college enrollment (e.g., DesJardins, Ahlburg, & McCall, 2006;Long, 2004). ...
... Despite the usefulness of the economic model of human capital investment theory, there is a limitation that it cannot explain group differences in college choices (Perna, 2006). Indeed, numerous research studies focusing on how financial aid is related to college choice have found significant effects of financial aid on enrollment, but the magnitude of these effects vary considerably across student subgroups (DesJardins et al., 2006). Scholars have assumed that the Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3208882 ...
... Para ello es recomendable que cuenten con: (a) planes de acompañamiento académico adecuado a sus potencialidades y necesidades; (b) sistemas voluntarios de acompañamiento socioeducativo orientado a fortalecer su extraordinaria persistencia y determinación; y, (c) planes de estudios que favorezcan la transición, tipo bachillerato, college, año cero u otro. Estas recomendaciones son concordantes con modelos desarrollados en otros contextos (García & Baird, 2000;DesJardins, Alhburg, & McCall, 2006). ...
... Justamente, dada la magnitud de las brechas generadas por una admisión ordinaria vía PSU y el carácter homogéneo del cuerpo estudiantil en universidades selectivas que ésta genera, se abrió -hace ya una década-una discusión pública en torno a la pertinencia de considerar el rendimiento académico durante la educación secundaria como un criterio de admisión, tal como en otros países. En efecto, este fenómeno no sólo ocurre en Chile con el proceso de admisión descrito, sino también en experiencias internacionales, como las que se describen enGarcía & Baird (2000) y en DesJardins,Alhburg & McCall (2006) en relación a Universidades estadounidenses y el efecto de la homogeneización de los cuerpos estudiantiles blancos producto de la exclusión de la población afrodecendiente que, en muchas ocasiones según relatan los autores, comparten el perfil socioeconómico que tienen nuestros estudiantes R850. En Chile, "diversas investigaciones han mostrado que este criterio de admisión supera a las pruebas estandarizadas de selección como predictor de rendimiento académico en los estudios universitarios"(Santelices, 2016;Bralic & Romagnoli, 2000;Gil & Ureta, 2003;Geiser & Santelices, 2007;Contreras, Gallegos & Meneses, 2009;Centro de Estudios MINEDUC, 2013;Muñoz & Redondo, 2013). ...
El año 2013 se develó que cerca de mil estudiantes que habían obtenido el mayor promedio de notas de enseñanza media en sus respectivos establecimientos educacionales, no podrían postular al Sistema Único de Admisión (SUA) porque no alcanzaron el mínimo puntaje exigido en el promedio PSU (Prueba de SelecciónUniversitaria) entre las pruebas de Lenguaje y Comunicación y Matemática. La Universidad de Santiago de Chile (UdeSantiago) decidió entonces, iniciar un proyecto piloto que permitiera a) contactar oportunamente a algunos de ellos; b) eximirlos desus puntajes PSU; c) invitarlos a ingresar al programa de Bachillerato en Ciencia y Humanidades; y d) acompañarlos hasta que fueran académicamente indistinguibles entre sus compañeros. Así, entre los años 2015 y 2016 ingresaron a la Universidad de Santiago de Chile, 10 de estos estudiantes entraron en la cohorte 2015 y 26 en la cohorte 2016. En este trabajo se muestran los primeros resultados de la cohorte 2016 en términos de promedios de notas y retención, comparados con aquellos de estudiantes ingresados el mismo año vía DEMRE (Departamento De Evaluación,Medición Y Registro Educacional), que administra la PSU.
... there is also an issue of endogeneity between enrollment and financial aid. As found in Desjardins, Ahlburg, and Mccall (2006), students behave strategically with respect to financial aid. enrollment choices are informed by expectations about financial aid offers and the relative generosity of financial aid packages across institutions (Kim, Desjardins, and Mccall 2009). ...
... Finally, it is important to note that our analysis is concerned exclusively with the first year of college. the differences we identify here may understate the debt burden of FG students who persist in college, as evidence suggests that some forms of financial aid are associated with increased likelihood of persistence and graduation (e.g., Desjardins, Ahlburg, and Mccall 2006;Dynarski 2003). the packaging of financial aid, then, has implications both for student indebtedness and student outcomes, and presents an opportunity for longitudinal research into packaging strategies that simultaneously minimize indebtedness and maximize student success, especially in an era of rising costs and shrinking financial support for higher education. ...
A growing number and proportion of students rely on student loans to assist with the costs of postsecondary education. Yet little is known about how first-generation students use federal loans to finance their education. In this article, we examine each of the decisions that culminate in student indebtedness: the decision to apply for aid, whether to borrow, and how much to borrow. We find significant differences by generational status at each step of the student borrowing process. First-generation students are more likely to apply for financial aid, borrow, and take out larger loans than their peers, after controlling for a rich set of covariates for costs and financial resources. We find that student characteristics cannot fully explain these observed differences in borrowing outcomes across generations.
... John & Hu, 2006). Less is known about the effects of college-related costs and subsidies in the steps leading up to attendance decisions (for an exception see DesJardins, Ahlburg, and McCall, 2006). ...
... As notes, finances are often entered into college choice studies at the enrollment stage; however, it is possible that enrollment decisions are not the only decisions influenced by tuition (price) or overall costs. In fact, DesJardins, Ahlburg, and McCall (2006) and Kim, DesJardins, and McCall (2009) have found that student expectations of aid have a strong impact on whether students even bother applying to college. It seems logical that whether or not a student even aspires to attend postsecondary education may be influenced by the price of postsecondary education, or at least the student's perceptions of the cost of postsecondary education. ...
Attending college can be very expensive. Research has demonstrated that costs associated with college (tuition, fees, room and board, etc.) and subsidies that help defray those costs (grants, scholarships, loans, etc.) can influence students??? enrollment decisions. We also know that some students??? choices are more heavily influenced by those costs and subsidies. What is not as clear is if college costs and subsidies influence students early in the college choice process. Policymakers and practitioners need to understand which students might not aspire to attend college and if finances is one of the factors.
Using the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, this study assesses whether or not students in the tenth and twelfth grades are affected in different ways by costs and subsidies associated with attending college. I do this by creating dependent variables in which students are placed into categories based upon both their predisposition to attend college and the level of importance costs and subsidies have in their decision-making process (referred to as predisposition/finances nexus measures). Using multinomial logistic modeling (MNLM), I test whether students??? demographic, academic, and psychosocial characteristics predict which category of the joint indicator of college aspiration and financial concern students belong.
The results indicate that, while students overwhelmingly report that they do plan to attend college after high school, there are some characteristics that explain which students do report that they do not plan to attend college because it is too expensive. In general, these students are poor, White, male, not academically strong, and do not feel as though others in their lives want them to attend college. Additionally, in the twelfth grade, the differences between students who do not plan to go to college because of finances and those who report that they do plan to attend college and finances are very important in their decision making based on parent status, academic preparation and performance, and encouragement of others. Implications based on these results, possible survey improvements, and directions for future research are discussed.
... Criticisms of tests historically have been based on research suggesting that the general admissions tests add little to prediction of college performance and have been oversold (e.g., DesJardins et al., 2006;Geiser & Studley, 2002;Maruyama, 2012). Their limited incremental value has led some universities to move away from using general admissions tests, instead using advanced subject matter tests (e.g., Geiser & Studley, 2002). ...
Scrutiny about and controversy regarding the use of college admissions tests have increased since COVID‐19 eliminated mass face‐to‐face testing. At that time, many selective colleges chose to make their admissions decisions without using such tests. More recently, the controversy has been sustained as some selective colleges and universities have reinstated requiring test scores. These tests, primarily the ACT and SAT, have received empirical support but also have faced substantial criticism from test critics and researchers. This paper examines contributions of admissions tests for predicting college outcomes in the presence of additional information available for making college decisions. We investigate relations of ACT tests with academic outcomes for four successive (2011–2014) first‐year cohorts at a large, moderately selective Midwestern Research 1 university. Analyses examine how strongly ACT college admissions tests are related to short‐ and long‐term college success for students controlling for their backgrounds (citizenship, race/ethnicity, first‐generation, sex, socio‐economic status). ACT tests contributed modestly to the prediction of first‐year performance. However, with first year college GPA included, ACT tests failed to add to the prediction of GPA in years 2, 3, and 4, and to prediction of dropout and graduation. These findings inform conversations about the use of college admissions tests post‐COVID.
... Sources: (DesJardins, Ahlburg, & McCall, 2016) ...
This study explores the influence of monetary policy on the efficiency of Sudanese Islamic Banks. It aims to determine the impact of monetary policy on bank efficiency, identify influential aspects, and provide recommendations for policy adjustments. The research uses both qualitative and quantitative methods, collecting primary data through surveys and interviews with bank executives and policymakers, and secondary data from bank financial reports and central bank policy documents. The findings reveal a significant relationship between monetary policy and bank efficiency, with specific aspects such as interest rate controls and reserve requirements having the most substantial impact. Different types of Islamic banks, such as commercial banks, were affected differently by monetary policy, with changes in policy over time having both positive and negative effects on bank efficiency. These findings contribute to the existing knowledge on the interplay between monetary policy and bank efficiency, particularly in the context of Islamic banking in Sudan. However, the study's limitations, including a focus on a single country and reliance on self-reported data, may limit its generalizability. Future research could expand this study by considering other countries or using alternative data sources.
... Curs & Singell (2002) andDesJardins et al. (2006) posit that tuition discount first affects aspirations ...
Traditionally, discounting tuition has been viewed as a strategy to expand enrollment and accessibility, particularly for low-income students. By examining historical and empirical data, this paper synthesizes trends to elucidate the relationship between tuition discounts and the enrollment of low-income students in US colleges and universities. The study's findings reveal a complex impact. While tuition discounts may increase overall enrollment numbers, low-income students receive a smaller volume of discounts due to rising tuition levels. The high sticker prices of tuition tend to price out low-income students from selecting institutions regardless of discounts, ultimately diminishing the total enrollment of low-income students.
... On the other hand, an increasing number of transitions in and out of education (Pallas 1993), which is another component of educational expansion, could still increase early-career complexity. This pertains specifically to current-day higher education attainment, which increasingly interacts with childrearing or childbearing spells, employment spells (i.e. between college and graduate school), or other forms of so-called stopouts (DesJardins et al. 2006;Goldrick-Rab and Han 2011). Today's school-to-work transitions should therefore be thought of as trajectories, consisting of education spells being blended into the early work life (Witteveen 2017). ...
There is a conception that contemporary work lives become ever more complex. Pioneering research has indicated that work lives have indeed become more complex, yet at a modestly increasing pace. This paper uses Swedish registry data across an exceptionally long time period, including cohorts born from 1931 to 1983. The following conclusions are drawn using state-of-the-art methods of measuring sequence complexity. For early-careers, an increasing complexity trend is evident between the 1950s and 1960s birth cohorts, yet complexity fluctuates around a stable trend for the 1970s birth cohorts and onward. For mid-careers, which are considerably more stable on average, complexity has decreased among women born between the 1930s and the early-1950s. However, the opposite trend holds true for men, resulting in a gender convergence in work complexity. We observe a subsequent standstill of the mid-career complexity trend across both genders, followed by a modest decline for the last observed cohorts. Analyses point to educational expansion as an important driver of the initial increase of early-career complexity. Taken together, this study affirms an initial shift to more work life complexity in the twentieth century, yet we find no unidirectional trend toward more complexity over the last decades.
... Other research (e.g., Rosenbaum & Naffziger, 2011) asserts that aspects of college search and application process that follow the predisposition stage present serious cultural barriers for disadvantaged students and that school personnel need to fill the gap and act as 'cultural capital translators'. Understanding the importance of 'getting a college education' does not mediate the necessity of comprehending the college search and application process, particularly for disadvantaged youth who experience cultural and social barriers to engage with college-related activities (DesJardins, Ahlburg & McCall, 2006). Therefore, school personnel must collaborate with communities in an effort to improve the college knowledge base of students and parents, specifically those from low socioeconomic and less formally educated backgrounds. ...
Are non-cognitive factors affecting youth's educational pathways after high school graduation? What differentiate college-going students who enroll in a 4-year public, 4-year private not-for-profit, or 2-year public institution in the United States? The study employs the Education Longitudinal Survey of 2002 to examine the role of student aspirations and dispositional beliefs toward education as key determinants of college participation and type of first postsecondary institution attended within 10 years of high school graduation. The study uses the Theory of Planned Behavior to operationalize dispositional beliefs. Study findings show that in addition to student achievement and high school context, dispositional beliefs and educational aspirations play significant role on student post-high-school pathways, but without removing the systemic outcome differences related to socio-demographic factors.
... Although research by Shin and Milton (2004) did not find a connection between PBF programs and increased graduation rates in their five-year study, PBF continues to be a factor for institutional funding resource allocation. DesJardins, Ahlburg, and McCall (2006) stated, "in recent years the length of time it takes to complete a bachelor's degree has garnered considerable interest among educational policy makers, the general public, and their legislative agents" (p. 575). ...
Graduation rates are a key metric for measuring success, both for the student who attains their degree and the higher education institution that awards the diploma. In a time of increasing social pressure to demonstrate the value of the higher education enterprise, colleges and universities have become increasingly attentive to the graduation rates for their students. Individual students are sensitive to their likelihood of degree completion as costs associated with higher education increase alongside continued perception that employability is positively impacted by a college diploma. Faculty and administrators are keenly committed to supporting students to graduation success, and the economic enterprise benefits from higher rates for graduation among students. Institutions report graduation rates for students who they perceive have experienced seamless enrollment at the institution and meet their degree requirements in a set time frame (National Center for Education Statistics, 2018). While this seamless enrollment and “on-time” graduation might be the expectation of many college bound students it is not the experience of all students. Missing from the typical graduation rates and reports is the experience of students who successfully graduate after university academic policy required they temporarily step away from the student role at the institution based on the lack of academic progress or performance. Students who have been academically dismissed and then return to the campus community are often not included within institutional degree attainment rates. As a result, less is known about the experience of persistence to graduation following a gap in attendance. This study used qualitative research methodology to explore the student experience of academic dismissal followed by academic reinstatement leading to successful graduation. Adviser: Brent Cejda
... He indicated that internal and external factors influence students' college choice decision. Chapman (1984) The financial aid as influential factor for students' college selection decision was affirmed in the college choice model (DesJardins, Ahlburg, & McCall, 2006). Thus, it is evidenced that financial aid, scholarships, and grants are critical factors to attract more students to HEIs. ...
College choice decision is a complex phenomenon which has a long term impact on the students' lives and success of higher education institutions (HEIs). Alarming statistical reports of decline in enrollment in Adventist educational institutions are highlighted by Anderson (2009), General Conference Commission on Higher Education (2005), Knight (2005), and Rasi (2010). Similarly, Adventist higher education institutions (AHEIs) in the Philippines were not exempted from this challenge of decreasing enrollment. Hence, there was a need of conducting the present research to find out the causes and possible solutions to this problem. The intent of this study was to achieve an in-depth understanding of Adventist students' (AS) college choice decision. This study in turn would help to develop an effective strategy to solve an ongoing problem of declining enrollment. As a result of it, it would have a positive impact on AS' lives and success of AHEIs. Moreover, the Adventist Church will find committed, mission oriented, and ethical Adventist leaders in order to continue the Adventist mission and evangelism in the world. The convergent parallel mixed method research design was employed in this study. The qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed simultaneously. Purposive random sampling strategy was utilized for collecting 300 surveys. The multistage purposive sampling technique was used for the qualitative data collection. There were 16 participants (eight participants from AHEI and another eight from non-Adventist higher education institution for individual interviews. Two focus group interviews were conducted with the same 16 participants. The qualitative and quantitative findings were summarized and compared to see whether convergence or divergence occured. The factor cost appeared as the most influential factor for AS in choosing HEIs. The influential people of AS' choice of HEIs were family members, friends, pastors, and alumni. The fixed college characteristics that influenced AS in selecting HEIs were institutional quality, cost, spiritual environment, awareness, career opportunity, location, facilities, campus safety, and philosophy and practice. The effort of AHEIs to communicate through effective promotion, brochures, media, and social networking promotion surfaced as effective means of attracting AS. Campus safety was a only factor that came out of the qualitative data analysis. The Adventist philosophy and practice, and campus safety emerged as unique factors as the contribution of this study in addition to the above mentioned factors that influenced AS' choice of HEIs.
... He indicated that internal and external factors influence students' college choice decision. Chapman (1984) The financial aid as influential factor for students' college selection decision was affirmed in the college choice model (DesJardins, Ahlburg, & McCall, 2006). Thus, it is evidenced that financial aid, scholarships, and grants are critical factors to attract more students to HEIs. ...
College choice decision is a complex phenomenon which has a long term impact on the students' lives and success of higher education institutions (HEIs). Alarming statistical reports of decline in enrollment in Adventist educational institutions are highlighted by Anderson (2009), General Conference Commission on Higher Education (2005), Knight (2005), and Rasi (2010). Similarly, Adventist higher education institutions (AHEIs) in the Philippines were not exempted from this challenge of decreasing enrollment. Hence, there was a need of conducting the present research to find out the causes and possible solutions to this problem. The intent of this study was to achieve an in-depth understanding of Adventist students' (AS) college choice decision. This study in turn would help to develop an effective strategy to solve an ongoing problem of declining enrollment. As a result of it, it would have a positive impact on AS' lives and success of AHEIs. Moreover, the Adventist Church will find committed, mission oriented, and ethical Adventist leaders in order to continue the Adventist mission and evangelism in the world. The convergent parallel mixed method research design was employed in this study. The qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed simultaneously. Purposive random sampling strategy was utilized for collecting 300 surveys. The multistage purposive sampling technique was used for the qualitative data collection. There were 16 participants (eight participants from AHEI and another eight from non-Adventist higher education institution for individual interviews. Two focus group interviews were conducted with the same 16 participants. The qualitative and quantitative findings were summarized and compared to see whether convergence or divergence occured. The factor cost appeared as the most influential factor for AS in choosing HEIs. The influential people of AS' choice of HEIs were family members, friends, pastors, and alumni. The fixed college characteristics that influenced AS in selecting HEIs were institutional quality, cost, spiritual environment, awareness, career opportunity, location, facilities, campus safety, and philosophy and practice. The effort of AHEIs to communicate through effective promotion, brochures, media, and social networking promotion surfaced as effective means of attracting AS. Campus safety was a only factor that came out of the qualitative data analysis. The Adventist philosophy and practice, and campus safety emerged as unique factors as the contribution of this study in addition to the above mentioned factors that influenced AS' choice of HEIs.
... While extensive research has been conducted on financial aid literacy and challenges around access for high school students (DesJardins, Ahlburg & McCall, 2006;McDonough & Calderone, 2006;Perna, 2006;Tierney & Venegas, 2009), fewer studies have focused on particular groups of undergraduates and their experiences, attitudes, and beliefs concerning financial aid (e.g., Matus-Grossman & Gooden; Tichavakunda, 2017;Ziskin et al., 2014). As Ziskin et al. (2014) point out, quantitative findings concerning financial aid and identity are informative, yet they leave gaps in our comprehension of how students understand their options and why they make particular financial aid decisions. ...
While scholars have looked at the intersection of financial aid and various identities, little work has examined how, if at all, race and racism are imbued into financial aid in higher education using qualitative inquiry. This paper begins that work by using a Critical Race Theory lens to analyze how, in the seemingly colorblind structure and process of financial aid, race matters. Using interview data collected from 35 Black juniors and seniors at a selective, historically White institution (HWI), the authors examine how race has informed students’ perceptions of themselves, their families, and their futures through their experiences with financial aid. The authors found that financial aid took the form of 1) a racial stereotype and microaggression, 2) added labor in searching for scholarships, and 3) a factor in reinforcing the racial wealth divide. More than a resource to facilitate college access and persistence, these scholars argue that financial aid is racialized, uniquely shaping the campus experience of Black collegians.
... To exemplify, the completion rates among delayed entrants in the United States are found to be extremely low, even in studies paying great attention to model unobserved heterogeneity (Bozick & DeLuca, 2005;Roksa & Velez, 2012;Taniguchi & Kaufman, 2005). Stop-outs and delays often go hand in hand with repeated gaps in the subsequent educational career (DesJardins, Ahlburg & McCall, 2006). Using German data, Müller and Schneider (2013), as well as Meulemann (1988), find that those who qualify for higher education through a non-standard pathway in the secondary education system, as well as those who complete vocational training before enrolling, have higher dropout rates. ...
... Based on this status, students may be faced with "stopping out," or delaying their studies during a period of nonenrollment. DesJardins, Ahlburg, and McCall (2006) examined the impact of interrupted enrollment on the likelihood of college students' academic success, and concluded that there are differences between racial groups related to stopping out, re-enrollment, dropping out, and graduating. Although SAP is intended to provide markers and accountability in the academic process, there is a limited understanding of how SAP impacts student outcomes in general, or differentially affects students from different racial/ethnic or income backgrounds (Schudde and Clayton, 2016). ...
Over the past few years, our understanding of the diverse identities of Asian American students has increased. Yet, the experiences of Asian American students who identify as coming from low-income backgrounds and as first-generation college students has been underrepresented in the literature. In particular, this study explored how Asian American students experienced the financial aid process, including the ways in which the federal Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) policy that establishes eligibility criteria for continued student financial aid impacts their experiences in college. Findings suggest student strategies for navigating a complicated process and institutional strategies for reducing confusion and increasing persistence and institutional responsibilitiy.
... Planning. This Strategic Planning, as a general concern of many higher education institutions (DesJardins & McCall, 2006) has the ability of managing several factors and, if well planned and executed, would decrease uncertainty, and allow including periodical estimates that will greatly affect the stand and long term objectives of these higher education institutions. ...
... Private universities focus on the increase in enrolment by the students because, since students are required to self-finance, this increases the revenue stream of the organizations. This, in turn, requires the private sector universities to increase their overall diversity within the available courses and an effective marketing mix that would increase the likelihood of increasing the student base through greater enrolments (DesJardins, Ahlburg, and McCall 2006). This, in turn, creates a cycle which would allow the universities to utilize the finances gained to increase the value of the education provided and increase their research. ...
This paper investigates the dynamics of student enrolment in the Syrian private higher education sector. The paper adopts a system dynamics approach, to construct suitable simulation models that could be used to examine the complex and dynamic interactions between student flows, staff ratios and investments in plant and facilities. The study involved interviews with key university personnel, focus groups with university staff, a survey of student perceptions and personal observations of key departments at the university selected for the study. Further interviews were held with members of staff of all the other private universities in Syria. The simulation model developed in this study has provided insightful and meaningful exploration of data whose practical applicability is not necessarily restricted to the Syrian university, but broadly encompasses all educational sectors, whether private or public. The model designed in this research is a decision support system, one that is a flexible tool to design measures that might help to improve student enrolments. University management can use the simulation model to create different future scenarios, involving changes in student numbers, staff–student ratios or investment in plant and facilities.
... Ze względu na niedostępność odpowiednich danych model ten jest statyczny. Nie uwzględnia, ważnej z punktu widzenia dynamiki selekcji społecznej, etapowości decyzji podejmowanych przez studentów -na etapach poszukiwania studiów, składania aplikacji i zapisywania się na studia różne czynniki mogą odgrywać różną rolę (DesJardins, Ahlburg, McCall, 2006). Przedmiotem badania są więc osoby, które studiowały w momencie zbierania danych, oraz gospodarstwa domowe, których są częścią. ...
Artykuł podejmuje próbę zbadania wpływu kapitału ekonomicznego, społecznego i kulturowego na podejmowanie studiów na uczelni publicznej lub niepublicznej, w trybie stacjonarnym lub niestacjonarnym, a w konsekwencji tych dwóch alternatyw także na konieczność płacenia czesnego. Wykorzystywane zazwyczaj w badaniach nad nierównościami w dostępie do edukacji wyższej koncepcje „klasy społecznej” i „statusu spo- łeczno-ekonomicznego” zostały skonceptualizowane w formie trzech rodzajów kapitału. Pozwoliło to uwzględnić w modelu więcej informacji o specyficznych zasobach gospodarstwa domowego, mogących mieć znaczenie dla osiągnięć edukacyjnych. Wyniki dostarczają informacji o cechach osób płacących za studia oraz pozwalają na postawienie hipotez odnośnie do redystrybucyjnych efektów systemu finansowania edukacji wyższej w Polsce.
... Six years after first enrolling, over 60% of firsttime community college students have not earned a credential or degree of any kind (Shapiro et al. 2016). 1 These low completion rates are unsurprising given the unique challenges that community college students face. Community college students are disproportionately low income and from traditionally underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds, which has implications both for the intensity of the other demands on their time and for the social and informational networks to which they have access Roderick et al. 2009;DesJardins et al. 2006;Goldrick-Rab and Han 2011). Many students enter with inadequate academic preparation (Bailey et al. 2010;Cabrera et al. 2005). ...
Concerns about the low completion rates in community colleges have led policy makers and administrators to examine interventions that aim to increase persistence and success by making colleges easier to navigate for students. One of the best supported and most well researched of the current reforms is guided pathways which aims to simplify student decision making. Meta majors, the grouping of all available majors into a handful of buckets, is an important components of these whole school reforms. In this paper I test an underlying assumption of this reform—that there are consistent groupings of majors that students would consider choosing—using tools from social network analysis. I draw on these consideration networks to examine how different groups of students cluster majors together; differences in how various groups of students group majors provides insight into how such interventions could increase efficiency or exacerbate inequality. These findings provide guidance for schools on what factors to consider when forming meta major groupings.
... Many scholars have examined students' educational investment decisions from a cost-benefit perspective (e.g., DesJardins, Ahlburg, and McCall 2006;Manski and Wise 1983;Perna 2000;Toutkoushian, Shafiq, and Trivette 2013). That is, FEDERAL POLICy EFFORTS TO SIMPLIFy COLLEGE-GOING 117 students' enrollment and borrowing decisions are assumed to be based on the expected costs and benefits associated with attending a given college, discounted to their present value (Becker 1962;Schultz 1961). ...
Over the past decade, the federal government has made substantial efforts to simplify the college-going process and help students to evaluate college choices. These low-cost strategies aimed at improving college access and success by helping students to make informed decisions about college warrant assessment. This study examines the impact of a recent effort aimed at simplifying information that colleges provide to students about college costs, loan options, and college outcomes. Results from a quasi-experimental analysis indicate that the “informational intervention” in this study had limited influence on community college students’ enrollment and borrowing decisions. I discuss the limitations of this particular intervention and the potential impact that other related policy efforts designed to help students at various points in the college-going process may have.
... Taste involves judgment. We first use taste to theorize how admissions officers determine which students have value to the institution (i.e., whether or not a students' mixture is to the tastes of the institution), how many students should be admitted, and which students will fit with the institution (DesJardins, Ahlburg, & McCall, 2006;Rubin, 2014). Notions of fit rely on tasting students' mixtures or social locations that we just described. ...
Pipeline metaphors are ubiquitous in theorizing and interpreting college access processes. In this conceptual article, we explore how a lemonade metaphor can open new possibilities to reimagining higher education access and going processes. We argue that using food metaphors, particularly the processes of mixing, tasting, and digesting lemonade, may help constitute new meanings of college going. Rather than focus on production, mechanization, and ignoring social justice, a lemonade metaphor emphasizes the nonlinear aspects of college-going processes, foregrounds power relations within these processes, and humanizes educational purposes and journeys. We encourage educational researchers to take up taste as a heuristic device to reveal something different about educational phenomena that will, in turn, have material consequences.
... and multifaceted EM plans in an attempt to compete for students in a very competitive marketplace. Modern enrollment management (EM) processes are often described as complex (Di Maria, 2015 ;Robinson, 2013 ), quantitative, and empirical (DesJardins, Ahlburg, & McCall, 2006 ), encompassing strategic initiatives that involve deliberative planning processes (Bejou & Bejou, 2016 ), and integrating communication mechanisms in order to connect with prospective students (Bontrager, 2004 ). But, according to a 2013 poll by Noel-Levitz, despite lofty goals that colleges have in implementing strategic multiyear enrollment plans, just one-third of respondents reported that they believed their SEM plan was of high quality. ...
The field of strategic enrollment management has become increasingly invested in data-informed practices. In 2015, The College at Brockport, State University of New York implemented a recruitment strategy that incorporated both predictive analytics and customer relationship management (CRM) technology. This effort both reduced budget expenditures and yielded the largest incoming first-year cohort in over 30 years. A step-by-step pragmatic approach is introduced to allow key enrollment management leaders the ability to understand how to seamlessly integrate statistical modeling with constituent relationship marketing platforms. By providing key components related to design, development procedures for statistical model development, and outcomes, SEM managers can utilize the knowledge gained from this primer in their SEM efforts.
... Since the late 1980s, educational policy makers have been concerned with attracting "desirable high school graduates to their campuses" (Stage and Hossler, 1989, p. 2). One choice model aimed at understanding how prospective students select a university is based on the five-stage consumer buying behavior model (DesJardins et al., 2006;Moogan and Baron, 2003;Hossler and Gallagher, 1987;Bruner and Pomazal, 1988;Howard and Sheth, 1969). However students' decisions are neither linear nor insular, as each sequential decision stage is influenced by a number of underlying attributes that drive choices (Fornerino et al., 2011). ...
Purpose
Educational institutions are caught between increasing their offer rates and attracting and retaining those prospective students who are most suited to course completion. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the influence of demographic and psychological constructs on students’ preferences when choosing to study in a particular faculty through the application and testing of a student choice logit model based on data collected from a survey of existing students.
Design/methodology/approach
Logistic regression techniques were used to estimate the probability of undergraduate prospective students’ choices with reference to a set of variables that allows for the prediction and classification of students (n=304) at an Australian university. Using the estimated coefficients of both student characteristics and psychological variables, probability outputs were constructed to compute the faculty membership for student groups. Outputs were also illustrated via a set of simulation analyses.
Findings
The results of the student choice logit model are highly significant suggesting demographic, socioeconomic and psychological variables play a role in the prediction of faculty membership of undergraduate students.
Practical implications
These findings have implications for researchers, educational policy makers and career planners. The study also suggests that these policies should take into account the complexities of multi-attribute influences on students’ decision-making choices.
Originality/value
This research offers an innovative marketing use of logistics regression techniques with application of the student choice logit model through predicting the likelihood of faculty membership in an education context.
... The first phase is the formation of preferences; the second one is gathering information and excluding some of the alternatives; and the third phase is the actual choosing (see e.g. DesJardins et al., 2006;James et al., 1999;Jackson, 1978). In a questionnaire-based research, James and his colleagues (1999) investigated the significant factors in phase three. ...
The Hungarian Higher Education has faced several structural challenges since the regime change of 1990. The ‘golden age’ seems to be over and the government tends to impose severe limits on institutions regarding the number of state-financed students, the minimal application points and the institutions’ missions. These new aspects influence the application procedures, as students are eager to achieve the highest price-value combination on the education market, which leads to internal and external migrations. In this study, we focus on the former, by using the agglomeration analysis of higher education institutions. We apply a modified Universal Law of Gravity to gather information about social and/or economic phenomena. On the level of single individuals, these types of decisions are random, but on the collective level, they can be characterized by certain principles and rules. This study explores the changes in the agglomeration areas and the limiting factors related to colleges and universities, offering economic education between 2004 and 2014. This period is adequate, as to identify the peculiarities and different influences of the market, the government, and the global trends and to identify the new spatial roles of the institutions. © 2016, University of Split - Faculty of Economics. All rights reserved.
Prospective college students—particularly students of color and those from low-income families—face a myriad of challenges applying to and enrolling in college, including constraints on information, financial aid, and academic preparation. Within the college search process alone, the number, diversity, and complexity of applications that students must complete represent substantial barriers to application and matriculation. A state-level common application seeks to reduce administrative barriers by allowing students to complete a single application to apply to multiple institutions. Using a difference-in-difference design that is robust to variation in treatment timing, we provide the first evidence on state-level enrollment impacts of these common applications. Despite the ongoing development and adoption of state common applications, we find no positive or negative effects on full-time equivalent enrollment in public higher education and show that the format of the common application (paper/online) does not matter. Rather, like strategies considered in other works, common applications may be most useful as a complement to more robust access and enrollment strategies. These findings should inform policy makers and serve as a foundation for future work examining the impacts of common applications on state and student outcomes.
Several wealthy colleges and universities have recently begun removing all loans from low-income students' financial aid packages. This article reports on a study that found that the introduction of “no-loan” policies has positively impacted low-income enrollments, suggesting that this aid strategy may be an effective, though limited, way of increasing economic diversity on campus.
Using linked, individual-level data from a large metropolitan K-12 district and a large urban community college district in California, we examine whether indicators of college-readiness for graduating high school students who were initially classified as English Learners (ELs) are honored in community college course placement. In particular, we explore (1) whether there is misalignment in course assignment levels among former EL students between the K-12 and community college sector based on high school readiness metrics; and (2) if misalignment exists, we investigate its extent among various levels and identities of EL students. We employ an integrated capitals and funds of knowledge framework to emphasize students’ assets in the form of resources, knowledge, and skills while also acknowledging the role of education systems in reproducing social inequities. We find that along with students who speak Spanish at home, Latina/o, and Black students, former ELs who met college-readiness standards experienced the highest levels of inter-sector English misalignment (over 75%). Our results show a negative association between experiencing inter-sector misalignment and college credit accumulation. After controlling for course placement, background, and academic characteristics our analysis suggests that despite facing higher levels of inter-sector misalignment relative to other students, former ELs manage to accumulate five to six more transferable degree units than their monolingual English-speaking peers. The findings suggest a need for even greater inter-sector communication and accountability between legislators, K-12, and postsecondary leaders to ensure that state-level college-readiness standards are properly defined and consistently used in the transition from high school to college.
realidad de las aulas universitarias, a día de hoy, continúa ofreciendo incógnitas acerca
de su impacto en el desarrollo de los procesos de implicación de los estudiantes. Por eso, el estudio
desarrollado tuvo como objetivo describir los motivos que los estudiantes universitarios construyen
para comprometerse con sus estudios superiores, desvincularse o revincularse con los procesos de
aprendizaje. Se estudia una muestra de 150 alumnos, seleccionados de manera no aleatoria,
matriculados en la Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto, Argentina. Se recolectan datos con un
cuestionario y entrevistas semiestructuradas. Los resultados muestran que las construcciones son
individuales pero compartidas. Resaltando la importancia de recrear los contextos educativos,
expandir el aula, crear lazos con la comunidad, brindar apoyos a los estudiantes frente a las
dificultades que atraviesan durante el cursado y apostar a la formulación de metas desde la agencia
personal que permitan trazar el recorrido académico con compromiso. Lo encontrado posibilita
generar pautas para futuras experiencias educativas para involucrar a los estudiantes con el proceso
educativo.
This report is the first of a series of two reports focused on examining the stopout and dropout phenomena at Sacramento State. For the purpose of this study, the data analysis and interpretation centers on highlight-ing personal issues influencing student departure. Personal issues are defined as the concern with students’ mental health, economic, social, and health predicaments. The purpose of this study was to derive at a comprehensive understanding of what mediates students to stopout and dropout at Sacramento State. A guiding objective of this study was to develop a data driven framework for examining practices that serve to facilitate effectiveness in moving students toward de-gree completion. An important companion to the data analysis and interpretation are the sections on recom-mendations for action. It is our hope Sacramento State uses the captured sentiment, voices, and suggestions of student participants to improve degree comple-tion. This has policy implications for early prevention, particularly for our most vulnerable students.
OK KRİTERLİ KARAR DESTEK YAPISINDA KONJOİNT ANALİZİ: ÜNİVERSİTE TERCİH ÖRNEĞİ Özet Günümüzde çok kriterli yapılarda karar verme konusu büyük önem taşımaktadır. Özellikle üniversite seçimi, bu konuda içerdiği birçok kriterle kapsamlı bir örnek-tir. Öğrencilerin üniversite sınavına girişlerinin ardından karşılaştıkları tercih dö-nemi kaygı düzeylerinin ve stres seviyelerinin yüksek olduğu bir dönemdir. Bu sü-reç sadece öğrencilerin değil ailelerinin, danışmanlarının da dâhil olduğu, var olan birçok kriterin kapsamlı araştırılmasını gerektiren bir süreçtir. Ülke genelinde; "ha-li hazırda sürmekte olan eğitim kalitesi ne kadar iyi, verilen eğitim yeterli mi, müf-redat güncel mi?" gibi sorular veliler, öğrenciler ve öğretim üyelerinin kafalarını meşgul etmektedir. Yapılan bu çalışma öğrencilerin şu anki eğitim sisteminde ka-rar verirken geçtikleri süreç içerisinde aradıkları kriterleri göz önünde bulundura-rak ve bu kriterlerden hangilerini daha öncelikli tercih ettiklerini değerlendirerek bir sonuç ortaya koymayı amaçlamıştır. Bu amaç kapsamında en çok tercih edilen devlet ve vakıf üniversiteleri ele alınarak bunların öğrenciye sağladıkları Sosyal ve Spor faaliyetleri, Aile ve Arkadaşların Önerisi, Bölüm ve İş Olanakları, Üniversite Üyelerinin Prestiji, Üniversitenin İtibarı gibi alanlar değerlendirmeye tabi tutul-muştur. 100 kişinin katıldığı araştırma kapsamında Andriani Kusumawati'nin yap-tığı Understanding Student Choice Criteria for Selecting an Indonesian Public University: A Conjoint Analysis Approach çalışmasından yola çıkılarak kriterler belir-lenmiştir. İçerisinde alışveriş merkezlerinden spor salonlarına, tiyatro salonların-dan resim kurslarına kadar değişik ve herkesin ilgisini çekebilecek kurslar veya et
Objective: Empirical work explaining student mobility, particularly postsecondary pathways among 2-year college students, remains limited. This study examines the underlying process that drives 2-year college students into one or more pathways as they navigate higher education. Method: Drawing upon survey, transcript, and interview data from one transfer-focused and two comprehensive community colleges in a Midwestern state, this study uses a grounded theory approach to develop a conceptual model to understand college students’ decision-making process when choosing among competing postsecondary pathways. Results: The resulting College Pathway (Re)Selection Model Among Beginning 2-Year College Students contained two categories—lifetime decision-making and short-term decision-making—that defined the purposes of students’ decisions as they navigate postsecondary education. Within the categories, 2-year college students described the role of payoff, fit, transferability, place, flexibility, and mobility in their decision-making process. Contributions: This study offers a new model that explains what shapes 2-year college students’ decisions and challenges notions of postsecondary pathways, student progress, success, and completion in the context of 2-year college students’ fluid lives and goals.
Many states are passing “free” college plans, and policymakers at both the state and federal level continue to debate the merits of national “free college” or “debt-free college” proposals, also known as Promise programs. In this report, we summarize the literature on the impact of financial aid and price on college student enrollment, surveying research on “free” college programs, financial aid programs, and tuition rate changes. While not exhaustive, our review shows potentially significant effects from programs, but illuminates how difficult projecting those effects can be. Some programs may increase enrollment at community colleges, but do so by diverting enrollment from four-year colleges. Others may show effects but have vastly different designs than most new free college programs. Second, we review the ways in which states and public colleges budget for new enrollees. Finally, we propose a policy framework for using existing research to adequately fund institution capacity needs that may result from new large-scale affordability programs.
This conceptual paper discusses changes in higher education sector, growing competition as a result of new private education providers and the adoption of student-as-customer perspective in recruitment and marketing of higher education institutions. The paper reviews numerous models of student choice and identifies inconsistencies in the role of social factors in the student choice. These inconsistencies are of special importance in current higher education landscape and growing prominence of peer-to-peer communication via social media. Consequently, a thorough understanding of influences that effect student choice of higher education institution is imperative. This conceptual paper puts forward a conceptual framework that integrates Kelman’s processes of social influence and Cialdini-Goldstein’s goals that underpin the acceptance of that influence to examine the effects social context has on student choice of higher education institution.
This study evaluates the effect of Florida's Bright Future Program on student college choices. We used regression discontinuity design to estimate the effect of two award levels, which had different SAT/ACT thresholds, on the probability of students choosing in-state public colleges and four-year public colleges. The most consistent and robustfinding was the positive, significant increases in the probability of attending Florida's public colleges and in the probability of choosing four-year public colleges for those students who barely met the program eligibility criteria when compared with those who barely missed those criteria. That is, the evidence presented in this analysis points to the fact that the Bright Future programs significantly altered students' college choices, both in terms of attending in-state public colleges and four-year public colleges. Although this finding held at different award levels and for students who took the SAT and/or ACT tests, the magnitude of the program effect varied along these factors.
This study examines the role of financial aid variables, namely, student loan and grant amounts, expected family contribution, and financial need, on the decision to study abroad among students in the University System of Georgia. Findings indicate that, generally, student loans negatively influence the likelihood of a student studying abroad whereas grant aid increases the likelihood. Students with higher levels of expected family contribution are less likely to participate in study abroad, as are those with more financial need. This study adds to our knowledge of factors that predict student study abroad participation in that it accounts for financial factors that have not yet been examined in the study abroad literature. Findings have important implications for students, study abroad practitioners, and institutions alike in terms of student access to international experiences, and also point to several directions for future research on the influence of students’ finances on their international educational experiences.
Eco-labeling of services has become increasingly common, yet little empirical evidence exists concerning its effectiveness. We address this gap in the literature by analyzing a highly visible eco-label, the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), in the sector of higher education. We match information about the ACUPCC to the US Department of Education IPEDS database to examine the impact of signing on student applications, admissions, and enrollment. We mainly utilize a difference-in-difference approach to identify the effects of interest but confirm results with an interrupted time series model. We find that signing the ACUPCC increases applications and admitted students by 2.5–3.5 %. However, the evidence regarding enrollment is weaker with only some specifications finding increases of around 1–2 %. Overall, there is considerable heterogeneity across sectors and selectivity of the institutions. These results show that, at the minimum, voluntary and information-based approaches (VIBAs) for services can be effective in generating visibility and influencing less-costly consumer behavior.
When students choose where to attend college, they often stay in close proximity to home and work. Much of the college choice literature, however, does not engage with the importance of geography in shaping educational destinations. Using county and commuting zone data from various federal sources, this study finds that the number of local colleges varies along lines of race and class. Communities with large Hispanic populations and low educational attainment have the fewest alternatives nearby, while White and Asian communities tend to have more. These can result in education deserts, or places where opportunities richly available for some communities are rare (or even nonexistent) in others.
The politics of intensifying competition in higher education by deregulation and decentralisation caused in Germany problems in the field of college admissions. In the case of excess demand high transaction costs and inefficient allocation resulted from multiple applications. In a decentralized matching market the number of these applications could be reduced by increasing the number of those prospective applicants which are able to calculate their chance of admission as nearly certain or as almost without a prospect.Of special interest for this calculation are the percentage of accepted applicants and the cut off grades of the admissions procedures in the past. A cut off grade will be the more suitable for the purpose of prognosis as the applicant can foresee her or his own performance (e.g. assessed with points) in the admission procedure; and if it can be stated to which extent the cut off grade will react to varying numbers of applicants. The universities should be obliged to publish the relevant key figures, and they should abstain from selection procedures causing high uncertainty to the applicant‘s endea vours for prognosis.
This study investigates how habitus, especially when it interacts with economic, cultural, and social capital, shapes the college-choice process including whether or where to attend college. By explicitly including variables intended to serve as proxies for the construct of habitus and integrating economic and sociological perspectives, this study will deepen our understanding of the complex college-choice process.
Using the Education Longitudinal Study (ELS:2002) – the most recently available national longitudinal study – this study identified a sample of 11,800 high school class of 2004 seniors. Considering that the dependent variables of this study are binary or categorical variables, this study uses logistic and multinomial logistic regression. Also, by adding the interactions among forms of capital, this study examines the following questions: How do variables that are often used to proxy for different forms of capital and habitus influence whether or where to attend college? To what extent does one form of capital reinforce the activation of other forms of capital? To what extent does the impact of forms of capital and habitus differ by a student’s socioeconomic status in the college-choice process?
The results indicate that not all forms of capital, nor the proxies used to measure habitus, are associated with college choice in the same way. While proxies for economic capital (e.g., family income), social capital (e.g., parent-student involvement), and habitus (e.g., occupational expectations) have been shown to have direct, positive effects on college outcomes, the variables often used to measure cultural capital (e.g., involvement in arts) have not. The results also reveal two distinctly different patterns regarding the relationship among forms of capital. While the first pattern indicates that one form of capital may actually undermine, rather than reinforce, the activation of other forms of capital, the second pattern indicates that one form of capital does reinforce the activation of other forms of capital. Although there is little evidence of differential effects of the habitus proxies (a student’s occupational expectation and comfort level at school) by socio-economic characteristics (e.g., family income and parents’ education), the results indicate that the impact of these habitus proxies does differ by race/ethnicity.
1. General Introduction 2. Introduction to Spline Models 3. Splines with Known Knot Locations 4. Splines with Unknown Knot Locations 5. Splines with an Unknown Number of Knots 6. Summary and Conclusions
How college price influences student decisions about whether and where to attend college is an important issue. The District of Columbia Tuition Assistance Grant Program allows those who qualify to attend public colleges and universities in other states at considerably lower "in-state" tuitions. This paper examines whether the grant program has effects on the likelihood that DC high school graduates apply to and enroll in college, finding that applications to four-year colleges increased substantially under the program.
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)
Access to higher education has increasingly become a major priority for state and federal policy-makers. Mixtures of student financial aid and low tuition have increasingly been viewed as the means for equalizing access to and choice among institutions of higher education. This paper reviews the recent empirical evidence on the impact of price changes on individual demand for higher education. The evidence suggests that both low tuition and student grants do stimulate increases in enrollment. However, the student aid induced enrollment response is relatively low and the cost per additional student attracted to higher education may be very high.
The introduction of a legislation, designed to penalize the colleges that raise their prices too high, by Republican is discussed. The legislation would penalize the colleges by preventing them from participating in some federal student-aid programs. It is found that the legislation also require the Education Department to make detailed information about college prices available to the public through a 'user friendly' Web site.
Does student aid increase college attendance or simply subsidize costs for infra-marginal students? Settling the question empirically is a challenge, because aid is correlated with many characteristics that influence educational investment decisions. A shift in financial aid policy that affects some youth but not others can provide an identifying source of variation in aid. In 1982, Congress eliminated the Social Security Student Benefit Program, which at its peak provided grants totaling 1,000 ($1998) of grant aid increases educational attainment by about 0.16 years and the probability of attending college by four percentage points. The elasticities of attendance and completed years of college with respect to schooling costs are 0.7 to 0.8. The evidence suggests that aid has a 'threshold effect': a student who has crossed the hurdle of college entry with the assistance of aid is more likely to continue schooling later in life than one who has never attempted college. This is consistent with a model in which there are fixed costs of college entry. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis indicates that the aid program examined by this paper was a cost-effective use of government resources.
This study analyzes the impact of demographic,socioeconomic, and financial factors on the enrollmentbehavior of accepted college applicants. The receipt offinancial aid had a positive impact on the enrollment decisions of accepted applicants. For every$1,000 increase in the amount of aid offered, theprobability of enrollment increased between 1.1% and2.5%. Grants and loans had the expected positive impact on enrollment, but work study did not enticeprospective students unless it was packaged with somegrant or loan assistance. Upper-income applicants wereless likely to enroll at this institution regardless of financial aid incentives.
To the extent that financial aid policy seeks to affect college-entry patterns, its framers presume that underrepresented minority students respond more favorably to a given financial aid package than other students do. This piece of financial aid dogma has been difficult to prove, for various technical and sampling reasons. This research addresses these problems by analyzing black, Hispanic, and white subpopulations separately, exploiting the sampling design of the High School and Beyond surveys. Black students, the results suggest, do respond more positively than white students to financial aid, all else equal. But financial aid effects on Hispanic students are difficult to distinguish from background effects. These findings imply that financial aid operates both positively and perversely when it is used to equalize college entry across majority and minority populations, and especially that its effects distribute unevenly among minority populations. Uniform financial aid awards probably increase the rep...
In 1987 Leslie and Brinkman published an important review of the literature on the relationship between price and enrollment in higher education. Since publication of their article many student demand studies have been released. This article summarizes the results of many of these key studies in light of Leslie and Brinkman's findings a decade ago.
The Journal of Higher Education 73.5 (2002) 555-581
Graduation, especially timely graduation, is an increasingly important policy issue, and for good reason. College graduates earn twice as much as high-school graduates and six times as much as high-school dropouts (Murphy & Welch, 1993); and their wealth is two and one-half times that of a high-school graduate and five times that of a high-school dropout (Diaz-Jiminez, Quadrini, & Rios-Rull, 1997). In addition to these financial rewards, the spouses of college graduates are more educated and their children do better in school and are less likely to get into trouble with the police (Jencks & Edlin, 1995; Murphy & Welch, 1993). Despite the obvious rewards, graduation from U.S. colleges and universities is far from assured (DeBrock, Hendricks, & Koenker, 1996). Lederman (1991) reported that of all students enrolled in Division-I schools in 1984, only 48% had graduated by August 1989. In the data used in this study, 41% of the entering class of 1991 had graduated within six years of enrollment. Of these graduates, 88% graduated without any interruption (henceforth "timely graduates").
The fact that only about one-half of college attendees graduate is widely perceived as a failure—a failure of either the student, the institution, or the entire educational system. This view is held particularly strongly by state legislatures. For example, Virginia intends to tie institutional funding to graduation rates and a number of other outcomes (Hebel, 1999). At the University of Minnesota, the institution examined in this article, graduation rates are one of the institutional effectiveness measures that have had funding explicitly tied to them for the past several years. Although concern about low graduation rates is understandable, the degree of this concern does not seem to square with the empirical evidence given that only 15% of students drop out because of academic troubles (Kalsner, 1991). Further, DeBrock et al. argue that those who fail to graduate do so as the consequence of a rational economic choice: "Each student must determine if the value of completing the degree makes persistence rational" (1996, p. 520). That is, are the net returns to persisting greater than the net returns of dropping out? As Altonji (1993) has argued, new information about preferences, abilities, and/or market opportunities may cause students to alter or interrupt their academic career. For them, the graduation decision is part of the overall labor market optimizing problem, an approach pioneered by Manski and Wise (1983). Two important conclusions follow from the optimization approach. First, it is incorrect to view those who fail to graduate as primarily a failure on the part of the university, and second, failure to graduate does not necessarily reflect a lack of ability on the part of the student. No matter one's perspective on why students fail to graduate, however, it is important to understand the determinants of successful and timely degree completion.
Most studies of student departure focus on the characteristics of students as determinants of success. The assumption is that poorly prepared students find college more difficult and are thus less likely to graduate (DeBrock et al., 1996). We too investigate the impact of student demographic characteristics, but because we have good controls for ability and academic performance, we interpret any effect as operating through relative rates of return to graduation rather than as measuring some failure on the part of the student. We add several attitudinal variables not usually considered and also include detailed data on financial aid. Financial aid plays an important role in higher education by lowering the costs of attendance (McPherson & Schapiro, 1998).
We also investigate whether students in different colleges within the university have different graduation rates. Such differences may reflect different standards among collegiate units. However, different rates of graduation may also reflect differential returns to employment in the labor market. For instance, in the 1980s and 1990s the returns to a college education increased, but not uniformly. For instance, returns to science and engineering increased much more than they did in other areas. Berger (1988) shows that students choose majors offering the greatest streams of future earnings, and it is likely that relatively higher returns...
It is suggested that well-designed and executed institutional research on the effects of student financial aid can help resolve ambiguities about policy and provide useful information for institutional financial planning. Models and methodologies for conducting such research using existing data sources are outlined. (Author/MSE)
This report discusses enrollment planning by colleges and universities as it concerns the understanding of why students choose to attend one particular college over another. First, the past responses of colleges to enrollment-threatening changes are presented. Next, an explanation is given of why knowledge of student college choice behavior is important for enrollment planning, student marketing, and recruitment. Then, the conceptual foundations for the study of college choice behavior (psychology, sociology, economics) are discussed, followed by an explanation of why it is important to understand what determines enrollment fluctuations, such as an increasing job market or economic recession. Micro-level studies of college choice behavior, which are used to estimate the effects of institutional and student characteristics on the probability that a particular individual will choose a particular college, are examined. Finally, information related to the following questions is presented and discussed: (1) "what factors are important to students of nontraditional age in making college decisions?" (2) "what are the phases of the college choice process?" (3) "what factors are important in creating a desire to attend college?" (4) "why is the college search and application phase so important?" and (5) "how can an institution more effectively manage enrollment in the selection and attendance phase?" Contains an index and 227 references. (GLR)
A theoretical model of decision-making was used to determine the influence of perceived differences in 27 institutional characteristics on college applicants' final college choice, using data from an annual survey by John Carroll University. (MSE)
This paper derives an expression for obtaining aggregate (interzonal) travel forecasts given a probit disaggregate demand model and zonal averages and intrazonal variances of the independent variables. It also derives expressions for the biases in aggregate model calibrations resulting from zonal homogeneity assumptions in the variables. The conditions under which these biases are important are discussed. Expressions are also determined for obtaining consistent, unbiased estimates for both aggregate and disaggregate models that take into account nonhomogeneous zones and practical data limitations.
The notion of “utility” is fundamental in most current theories of human decision. The problem of determining the utility function of a given decision maker, however, presents grave difficulties. It is not sufficient to determine the decision maker's rank-order preference of choices, because such a rank-order preference would determine his utility only on an ordinal scale, not the interval scale required in many decision problems. The problem is further complicated by the fact that even the preference choices of the chooser are often inconsistent with each other. T o circumvent the latter difficulty, stochastic definitions of utilities have been proposed in which probabilities (frequencies) of preference choices become the basic data. Here the implications of some of these models are derived which enable the experimenter to decide whether a given model is consistent with a set of data. Appropriate statistical sampling tests are worked out.
The skills of the institutional research office can be used to find out what actually happens between potential students' first show of interest and their enrollment, and why.
The focus of this paper is on determining appropriate combination rules for idiosyncratic ordinal utility functions in conjoint measurement. An axiomatic diagnosis is used which is based on explanatory criteria rather than goodness-of-fit or predictive criteria. Experimental results are presented comparing the selection of combination rules based on axiomatic tests and empirical fitting procedures for additive (x + y + z) and distributive (x(y + z)) combinations of three factors. A number of conflicting diagnoses result from the simultaneous applications of axiomatic tests and goodness-of-fit criteria, suggesting the importance of testing certain necessary conditions for simple polynomial combination rules, such as additive and distributive rules. Because the axiomatic approach is effective in rejecting inappropriate functional forms, we argue that it should complement rather than replace the empirical fitting diagnostic approaches.
Labor Supply is a survey of and critical guide to recent theoretical and empirical work on labor supply models, both static and dynamic. The chapters on recent empirical studies and on dynamic models are of particular interest, because neither topic has so far been discussed in any detail in standard texts. Integrated within this survey is an extensive discussion of public policy issues relating to labor supply, including income transfer programs, such as welfare and Social Security, and the income tax system. A concluding chapter discusses secular trends in labor supply in the U.S. economy, in particular the long-run increase in female labor force participation.
This study examines a model of college choice by parents on behalf of their eighth-grade children. A sample of 931 Illinois parents nominated 154 identifiable institutions in a 1986 survey. Multivariate multiple regression is used to predict preferred institutional characteristics, including selectivity, highest degree offering, proximity, enrollment, and tuition. Results indicate that socioeconomic, familial, and college planning characteristics explain 35 percent of the variance in selectivity of colleges in the choice sets, with lesser (but significant) percentages of explained variance for the other institutional characteristics. These parental college nominations parallel previously reported matriculation behaviors.
I am grateful to Joseph B. Kadane for numerous constructive suggestions offered during discussions of this research. The financial sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Transportation through grant DOT-OS-4006 is also acknowledged. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author.
While higher education researchers have long been concerned with the development and application of methods to adequately assess the impact of college on students, strong advances in statistical theory and computational practice have shifted this focus from the fundamental issues of research design to the application of appropriate statistics. This study focuses on the practical implications of applying logistic regression, probit analysis, and linear regression to the problem of predicting college student retention. Rather than simply assuming that one technique is analytically superior to others based on theoretical grounds, this study explores how these techniques compare in predicting student retention using data provided by registrars from a national sample of colleges and universities. Results indicate that despite the theoretical advantages offered by logistic regression and probit analysis, there is little practical difference between either of these two techniques and more traditional linear regression.
Students admitted to more than one institution of higher education face one of the most difficult decisions of their lives. The determinants of these enrollment decisions are crucially important to the yield of qualified students from the number admitted to colleges and universities. This paper specifies an empirical model of the enrollment decision for students admitted both to Rutgers University and to at least one alternate college. Our estimates of the parameters of the model with a binary choice multiple regression equation show that students base their enrollment decision on the relative quality of the schools, their own abilities and family resources, and the net costs of the schools. The results are relevant to university tuition and financial aid policies. The general methodology is replicable by other institutions seeking information on the determinants of the enrollment decision.
Other researchers have found that personal socioeconomic background, measures of the fit between characteristics of institutions
and factors students want in colleges they attend, and measures of the quality and location of the high school attended influence
aspiration for higher education and/or the matriculation decision. In this study I investigate the effects of similar variables
on students' decisions to apply to a particular institution after asking the Educational Testing Service to send their SAT
scores to it. The results indicate that the fit between a student's preferences and an institution's characteristics has the
most substantial impact on the decision to apply. Within the set of variables measuring this fit, correspondence between location
desired, if the location is close to the student's home, and a SAT score either at or above the average score of applicants
to the institution stand out as primary predictors.
Most research on student price response was conducted on students who entered college before the Pell Grant program was implemented in fall 1973. This study uses the High School and Beyond Sophomore cohort, the High School Class of 1982, to analyze the effects of the amount of tuition charged and aid offered on student enrollment decisions. The findings include (1) all forms of financial aid—grants, work, and loans—were effective in promoting enrollment; (2) one hundred dollars of aid (any type) had a stronger influence on enrollment than a one-hundred-dollar reduction in tuition; (3) low-income students were more responsive to increases in grant aid than to increases in loans or work study; and (4) high-income students were not responsive to changes in aid amounts.
This paper describes a longitudinal path-analytic study of influences upon educational aspirations and plans for graduate and professional schooling among 418 undergraduates at two U.S. universities. The analysis suggests that academic performance, parental supportiveness, faculty-student interaction, and major department context played significant roles in outcomes, beyond the role played by freshman-year background characteristics. There were some differences in the results for men and women, suggesting further attention to gender differences in postcollege educational attainment processes. Overall, the analysis suggests that greater attention to subenvironments, such as major departments, may be warranted in studies of this kind.
This paper uses a flexible modeling strategy to examine the roles of measured ability, family characteristics and proxies for secondary schooling quality as determinants of the decision to enter college. While previous work on this topic has been careful to determine which explanatory variables to include when modeling college entry decisions, few studies have been concerned about appropriate distributional assumptions, (i.e. choice of link function). In this paper, I extend my binary choice analysis to the class of Student-t link functions, which enables me to approximately regard the often-used probit and logit models as special cases. Unconditional estimates which average over competing models and integrate out model uncertainty are also obtained. Using NLSY data, I apply these methods and find that the link functions and estimated impacts of ability and family characteristics on the probabilities of enrolling in college are not constant across race and gender groups.
This paper investigates the effect of changes in tuition and fees on the matriculation rate of applicants admitted to a group of selective liberal arts colleges. Our sample is drawn from a detailed data base for 82 liberal arts colleges over the 1988 to 1990 period, compiled by the Higher Education Data Sharing (HEDS) Consortium. We find that an increase in the level of tuition and fees charged by a college causes d significant reduction in the share of admitted applicants who choose to enroll. The elasticity of this relationship is in the neighborhood of one-third, and is somewhat larger for financial aid recipients than for students who did not apply for or did not qualify for aid.
A model combining student preferences for college with university admissions decisions is estimated to provide information on the role of test scores in the determination of post-secondary educational opportunities in the U.S. In contrast to implications of much of the recent criticism of tests and their use, we find that scholastic aptitude test scores are more strongly related to student application and choice of college ‘quality’ than to college admissions decisions. In addition, although there is a substantial correlation between test scores and high school performance, we find that both post-secondary school preferences and ultimate opportunities are related as much to performance in high school as to test scores themselves. Although SAT scores certainly exclude some persons from schools, our findings indicate that they do not represent an overriding constraint on the college opportunities of high school graduates.
Nonlinear price responses by shoppers in brand choice decisions have important managerial and theoretical implications for designing pricing and price promotions. However, the study of these phenomena by traditional parametric techniques is not only tedious, but may lead to an incorrect confirmation of theory. To avoid these problems I demonstrate a simplified means for detecting the possible presence of nonlinearities in consumer response by means of a unique, nonparametric method. This method relaxes the usual linear-in-parameters character of the multinomial logit (MNL) model by an additive sum of one-dimensional nonparametric functions of explanatory variables. In an application of this model to aseptic and red drink databases, I document the presence of these nonlinearities in the form of price threshold effects and a saturation effect with respect to price reductions. I further apply the model to orange juice and ground coffee scanner data by employing the framework of a previous parametric study of Kalyanaram and Little (1994). The model easily found the expected existence of weak price sensitivity around the reference price and a greater consumer negative reaction to price increases than positive reactions to price decreases. Researchers may find this nonparametric technique a useful addition to their kit of statistical tools.
This paper extends prior work by jointly modeling the application and enrollment decision for in-state and out-of-state freshmen at a large public university. Two separate empirical analyses use individual and aggregate time-series data for the University of Oregon to estimate and compare the responsiveness of applicants and enrollees to person-specific and time-specific variation in the net price. The results show that prior studies may understate student price responsiveness by separately focusing on the application or enrollment decision. Moreover, the elasticity estimates are found to differ for in-state and out-of-state students and can be sensitive to whether the price variation occurs across individuals or over time.
Over the past two decades as student recruitment has become increasingly important, numerous studies have examined the college choice process in an attempt to identify factors influencing students' decision making. The findings from these studies are particularly helpful for college administrators in identifying a potential pool of desirable students and in implementing new recruitment techniques. In this study we used a logistic regression model to investigate the effects of variables relating student characteristics and institutional factors on the decision to apply to a large land-grant university. [JEL I21]