Life Happens: How Non-College Life-Events Influence Racial Inequality in Four-Year Graduation Rates at Selective Colleges and Universities
Open Access
- Author:
- Cox, Bradley E.
- Graduate Program:
- Higher Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- March 03, 2010
- Committee Members:
- Robert D Reason, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Robert D Reason, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Patrick T Terenzini, Committee Member
Kimberly A Griffin, Committee Member
Marylee Carmel Taylor, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Net Equity
College Graduation
Student Outcomes
Non-College Life-Events
Racial Equality
Pre-College Characteristics - Abstract:
- Racial inequality is a persistent reality in the United States. Racial gaps appear at nearly every stage of the educational pipeline, from pre-school attendance to graduate degree completion (Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, 2002; Cabrera & La Nasa, 2000). Among those students who attend college, sizable racial gaps appear in nearly every measure of student success in college. Black and Hispanic students tend to receive lower grades (GPAs) (Hu & St. John, 2001; Kuh, Kinzie, Cruce, Shoup, & Gonyea, 2007), drop out more frequently (St. John, Hu, & Weber, 2001), and graduate at lower rates (Astin & Oseguera, 2005; Snyder, Dillow, & Hoffman, 2008) than do their White and Asian counterparts. To develop effective policies and programs aimed at reducing these racial gaps, policy-makers and educators must have an understanding of their underlying causes. By addressing the following two questions, this dissertation explores two factors that may currently be contributing to racial inequality in American higher education: 1) Do racial inequalities in four-year graduation rates at competitive-entry colleges and universities remain after accounting for a wide range of race-specific pre-college influences? 2) If so, are such inequalities related to the frequency or effect of certain non-college-life-events that occur while students are attending college? Using data from 2,590 students who participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, a six-year study of students at selective colleges and universities, this dissertation employs hierarchical generalized linear models to identify the race-conditional effects of students’ pre-college characteristics and non-college life-events on students’ likelihood of graduation within four years. Results suggest two overall conclusions. 1. Racial inequalities in four-year graduation rates at these colleges and universities remain, even amid comprehensive statistical controls for: institutional variation in overall graduation rates; individual variation in students’ demographic, academic, psychological, sociocultural, and financial backgrounds; and race-specific variation in the relative importance of students’ pre-college characteristics. 2. Racial inequalities in four-year graduation rates at selective colleges and universities cannot be explained by racial differences in the frequency or effect of students’ non-college life-events, despite the clearly detrimental effect of certain non-college life-events and significant racial differences in the frequency with which students encounter such events.