Opportunity or not: Race, Gender, Income, and Academic Success in an Open-Access College
Student retention and the factors that impact it is one of the most significant issues facing higher education today. Countless hours and funding have been spent in an attempt to find why some students decide to leave college, while others remain. The majority of previous studies have focused primarily on traditional students from four-year, residential colleges. However, research at non-residential two-year open-access colleges is lacking, and with that population increasing in the United States, more research is required to understand how to increase retention and graduation rates. The purpose of this study was to use data from a suburban, regional, open-access college of a midwestern research I university to determine factors that impact student retention. In this study, the relationships among these variables were examined: (a) student demographic characteristics – age, race, gender, high school attended, household income level by FAFSA (EFC), (b) academic performance – grade point average, academic action, English placement test, and math placement test, and (c) number of quarters attended, and (d) transfer/graduation rate. The variables examined were applied to two groups, low income students and high income students. These variables were included with the goal of discovering challenges that interfered with successful academic performance. There was an interaction between race and gender. Income made a large difference in scores, and low income African American students had slightly lower GPAs than low income Caucasian students, but high income African American students had slightly higher GPAs than high income Caucasian students. When examining student retention and academic performance, income plays a significant role in success or failure.
Community Colleges, Stduent Retention, Open-Access Education, Socio-economics, Gender, Race, Academic Success
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