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As the American economy demands a more educated and highly trained work force, it has become increasingly important for American youth to continue their education beyond high school. Given these demands, it is encouraging to note that nearly two-thirds of 1988 8th-graders had enrolled in some form of postsecondary education by 1994, two years after most completed high school (Sanderson et al. 1996), and that three-quarters of high school graduates had enrolled (Berkner and Chavez 1997). Nonetheless, there were still great disparities in postsecondary enrollment when socioeconomic status was considered: 36 percent of students from families in the lowest socioeconomic quartile had enrolled in some postsecondary education, while the vast majority (88 percent) of students in the highest quartile had done so. The purpose of this research, however, is not to present evidence concerning well-known and documented disparities, but to explore why certain students identified as at risk of school failure managed to succeed in school and enroll in postsecondary education despite social and educational disadvantages. How are these students different from their less successful at-risk counterparts?
The study took advantage of a considerable amount of research that has been conducted by MPR Associates, Inc. for the National Center for Education Statistics in two areas: (1) at-risk secondary school populations, and (2) issues related to postsecondary access and choice. The current study combines these two areas by identifying students at risk according to factors that increase their likelihood of dropping out of high school, and then examines the experiences of at-risk youth who not only managed to graduate from high school, but who also entered postsecondary education.
Chen and Kaufman recently expanded on research first conducted by Kaufman and Bradby (1992), who used the 1988 National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS:88) to profile 8th-graders at risk of dropping out of school between 8th and 10th grade. Chen and Kaufman’s study (1997) extended the time frame through the second follow-up (1992) when most of the cohort graduated from high school, to compare at-risk students who dropped out of high school with their resilient counterparts (at-risk students who graduated). To understand why resilient students remained in school despite the odds against their doing so, factors such as family stability, parental involvement in school activities, students’ attitudes about learning, and peer associations were examined and compared to the experiences of students who dropped out. The results revealed that resilient students had more positive attitudes about school, had more cohesive families, had parents who were more supportive of their schooling, and had peers more engaged in school than did dropouts. The study concluded that these positive experiences play a protective role in reducing the impact of risk on resilient students.
The analysis reported here identifies students at risk according to similar risk factors that were defined in Chen and Kaufman’s study and tracks the progress of the resilient at-risk students to see if they continued their education beyond high school. The analysis also builds on the findings from a descriptive study recently published by the National Center for Education Statistics (Horn 1997), which described high school graduates’ experiences in the "pipeline" to higher education. The pipeline refers to five junctures or steps necessary to make the successful transition from high school to college. These include having a bachelor’s degree goal, being at least minimally prepared academically to attend college, taking entrance exams, applying to college, and enrolling in college. The pipeline study determined how at-risk students differed from their counterparts who were not at-risk in terms of their college pipeline experiences and further compared at-risk students who successfully enrolled in a 4-year college with their at-risk counterparts who did not. The results indicated that even among students who were at least minimally prepared academically to enroll in college, at-risk students were less likely to take entrance exams and apply to college than were their counterparts who were not at risk. The results further suggested that there were certain student, parent, and peer engagement indicators that distinguished "successful" at-risk students—those who went on to college—from their at-risk peers who did not enroll.
This analysis expands on the pipeline study by using logistic regression models to determine if the engagement indicators analyzed in previous studies increased the likelihood of moderate- to high-risk students enrolling in postsecondary education, after controlling for risk factors, math coursetaking, and achievement measures, as well as activities presumed to be important for preparing for college.
[Data, Definitions, and Methods]