What Is Student Success?

Student success is a broad topic and as such, it is vital to define it. In this chapter the primary measurement of student success is defined by the rate at which students complete their educations; we will be investigating the effect certain variables have on this rate, including common demographic factors such as race, religion, gender, and income level, as well as more nuanced aspects such as the quality of instruction, geographic location, instructional modality, and the observed and predictable effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There is an abundance of data that proves that a higher income is correlated with better life outcomes, and given this information, it is unsurprising that many associate success and even happiness with income. The problem with using income as a measure of success is the subjective utility that income offers on an individual basis. Income is an objective and measurable variable, but the happiness associated with that income is not. In fact, it seems that for many, income only matters on a relative scale, or in other words people feel successful if they are earning more than their peers, not simply more (D’Ambrosio & Frick, 2007). Utilizing the college completion rates instead should allow for a more accurate representation of student success, assuming that students are self-selecting into the fields that they feel they will be able to achieve the most success in, measuring if students are in fact maximizing their subjective success could be an interesting topic for future research, but that is beyond the scope of this chapter.

Furthermore, the reasoning behind using the rate of college completion as our measure of student success revolves around usability and availability. Since college completion is a more binary system (you either finish the degree or you don’t) than income, for example, it should be easier to observe the impact that changing conditions has on that rate. This leaves us with easier-to-digest information that makes cause-and-effect relationships more evident. Furthermore, it is clear that policy changes can lead to improved student outcomes if they are properly designed with data in mind (Elliot & Beverly, 2011), and there is a is clear benefit for society as a whole if student success rates increase— a more educated population is preferable to a less educated one due to the effects it has on growth and overall productivity (Krueger & Lindahl, 2001).

What Impacts College Completion?

When obtaining higher education, college acceptance and completion can be a challenge for many. Observing the different personal factors that influence the completion of college and the different characteristics of college that can potentially determine a person’s educational outcome, can enable us to further understand how people succeed in college. There are many positive and negative factors in a person’s life that could impact their motivation to attend or complete a college education. Some of the more personal factors that will be discussed are family life, mental and physical health, finances, personality traits, and academic ability. As well as the characteristics that colleges have themselves such as; private versus public college, level of educational quality, location, diversity, or educational programs available.

Individual’s Factors That Influence College Success

One topic that consists of many things that play a role in the effect on college success is the factors individuals consist of that impact college completion. A very important and influential factor of college success is a student’s family and background. Parental guidance plays a role in college success and motivation. Depending on how much of an investment the parents put into their children’s education, they will have a higher motive for keeping up with their child’s grades and wanting to be more involved in school depending on the size of their investment. The research from Fredricksson, Öckert, and Oosterbeek provides evidence that high-income parents tend to help their students with extra work compared to low income families (Fredriksson et al., 2016). This can show evidence that families with high income, who might have higher investments on education will more likely  help the performance of the student. A student whose parents have a lower investment in their education can experience a lower chance of graduating due to the pressure of succeeding and debt from college loans. Family is also crucial because depending on the parents, children tend to develop skills and personality traits that might increase their odds of completing college. For example, two parents who might be a doctor and an engineer might have a child that develops some of their skills and abilities, therefore might excel in school and achieve multiple degrees. Personality traits tie into family because children can develop their traits and hobbies from their parents. For example, a child who grew up with an artist as a father has a higher probability of pursuing art and even a higher chance of obtaining an education in art at some point in their life compared to other studies. This ties into an increase in intergenerational mobility due to the influence parents have on their children and they can develop their skills for their parents’ careers.

Another important factor of college success is the financial factor of the student because the financial conditions of students/families can either lower the chances of graduating college or increase the chances. For example, if the student’s family is wealthy, it is easier for them to invest their income into their children’s education which will keep the child in school with the proper resources to succeed. While poorer families will have a harder time supporting their children through their education due to how expensive it is and the child, if they even decide to go, might have a hard time paying for the full length of their college education so they have a higher chance of not completing college. The financial factor of a student can also determine the levels of their parent’s private investment, which is impacted by the utility derived from parents own consumption and the future income of their children (Fredriksson et al., 2016). For high income parents, assuming they cannot leave debt to their children, tend to reduce their private investments more in response to an increase of public investments than low-income parents (Fredriksson et al., 2016). This can affect the student’s decision on attending college and the quality of the school because the investment their parents make might not be enough for them to attend college or even obtain a lesser quality education than wealthier students, which depends on the income of the family and the  level of private investments the parents make. Since one of the main reasons people do not go to college or can not finish is because of how expensive the tuition is, saving early and loans are important to increase the chances of completing college. One policy that may increase college graduation rates was Child Development Accounts which helps parents and youth start saving for college early (Elliott & Beverly, 2011). This program may increase overall college attendance and graduation completion rates. Families who support their children’s future and start saving early are crucial for an increase in college graduation success.  The role of financial situations and family support has a huge influence on students completing college.

Most people have many different personality traits and character traits that influence their actions and decisions every second, even if that’s including a mix of good and bad traits. But certain ones increase the chance of college completion compared to others. Certain cognitive skills and personality traits have been identified to have direct and indirect effects in their performance in several categories like math, foreign language, history-geography, mathematical achievement, and verbal speaking (Gilles et al., 2001). The results from this study showed that one personality trait that has been found to be a critical predictor of academic success is openness-intellect (Gilles et al., 2001). That is just one personality  trait  researched but there are other character traits that influence the performance of students. For example, people that are proactive and have good time management skills tend to be a lot more successful in college than people that lack these traits or contain the opposite. Another example, the chances for someone to graduate who has poor time management skills are lower compared to someone who is better at managing their schoolwork and balancing their schedule. The students who are really driven and the motivation people have towards their education is also important because that increases attendance rates and the likelihood of them graduating compared to someone who does not care as much about their performance. Personality traits will also be mentioned in the next section discussing their influence on academic ability, in which you will learn how it affects college completion.

Another factor that can be crucial when attempting to successfully complete their college education is mental and physical health and the disabilities one may have. Issues with mental and physical health can discourage certain people from attending college, performing well, or preventing them from completing their education. Disabilities might make it harder for people to attend class or even learn anything from class. Learning disabilities are one of the biggest obstacles for students when trying to accomplish a college education due to the disadvantages of the disability. For example, a person that is not medicated with ADHD might have a lot harder of a time completing college successfully compared to a person who is medically diagnosed and medicated for ADHD who has a higher chance of graduating due to their disability being recognized and treating the problem (focusing), which might have been threatening potential college graduation.  Referring to the study of Gilles, Pierre-Yves and Bailleux, another trait of students that was studied was anxiety, which is also a mental health disorder that 10% to 20% of children and adolescents in the general population and in primary care settings report anxiety (Killu et al., 2016). Anxiety was found to have a direct effect on academic success, with math having the strongest reported correlations (Gilles et al., 2001). Further, anxiety disorders have long-term negative implications as they have been shown to be associated with later depressive disorders, suicide attempts, and substance abuse (Killu et al., 2016). Many mental health disorders tend to have negative implications long term or short term that can severely impact ones performance in school. Treatments or remedies for these disabilities and health problems can potentially increase college completion and educational success for students.

One of the most deciding factors in going to college and especially completing the full education is the student’s academic ability. If a child has a higher academic ability, he will be more motivated to apply for college and also get into better schools. Not only will the better schools help him perform better but a higher academic ability improves student success. Light and Strayer (2000) examine the decision to attend college and the decision to complete college as two separate choices, as well as assess the influence academic ability has on each choice. They found that ability has a positive effect on the probability of college attendance no matter the college quality. However, they tend to self-sort by ability (Light & Strayer, 2000). This basically means that people with higher quality abilities are more likely to pursue a higher-quality college and students with lower level abilities and skill are more likely to attend a lower-quality college (which will also be discussed in the second section). When it comes to college completion, student ability and college quality are shown to have a significant effect (Light & Strayer, 2000). They also mention that students with a lower ability can improve their odds of completing college by attending the least selective colleges, while higher ability students have a higher chance of graduating from a top-tier school than a significantly weaker school. Another topic discussing academic ability is how early education can boost college success rates for low income families. Early college designs promote first-generation attending college by having them experience college skills early on to prepare them for future college courses and motivate them to use the credits they have obtained. There is evidence that supports the idea that early college designs greatly impact low-income youth, with around 90% graduating high school, which is 12% higher than the national average and 30% of them earn an associate degree or postsecondary credential with their diploma (Ndiaye & Wolfe, 2016). This connects back to a student’s academic ability has on college success because preparing kids early on with college education prepares them for the future and increases chances to graduate college, even for low-income families. Academic ability can also be influenced by personality traits because sometimes people develop traits that are more academically targeted than other types of traits. As mentioned in a previous  paragraph, one personality trait that has been found to be a critical predictor of academic success is openness-intellect while there was no proof of  conscientiousness being one due  to the possibility of high correlation between variables (Gilles et al., 2001). The completion of college is clearly influenced by the academic ability of students and the education they obtained.

Impact of College Quality and Characteristics on Attendance and Completion

When an individual is thinking about going to college, everyone compares all the types and qualities to find the best college education for them; some individuals might prefer certain qualities over others which might persuade them to attend another college. The qualities and characteristics of colleges can potentially have an impact on the attendance and academic completion of students. One of the more popular discussions amongst people when deciding on what college to go to is if private colleges are significantly better than public education.  Then a student investigates the impact of better-quality education programs in certain fields on college attendance and completion. To understand more about college decisions based on their qualities and the impact of that on education, by looking into the hobbies or preferences of students one can see if there is an impact on college decision or attendance/completion. Certain demographic groups will be analyzed by how it’s affected by certain college qualities.

One quality that separates most college students around the world is whether they attend a public or private college. These schools tend to have huge differences in tuition and even differences in the quality of schooling. Private colleges tend to have more expensive tuition which can lead to students self-sorting into schools with other high-income families who can afford such schooling. While this can create a barrier for lower-income students to attend higher-quality colleges. Private colleges also tend to offer higher quality resources and opportunities overall which may lead some students to a higher chance of completing their education. Students’ decision of which college they attend can be influenced by whether the college is a private or public school. Some students prefer a more affordable and moderate education compared to spending double the amount for a more privately run institution where they personally don’t think the difference in the quality of education is great enough to spend that extra cost. Depending on each student’s individual case, the factor of private vs public college education impacts each person differently and can determine what school a student will attend.

When students search for colleges to attend, one main thing most people look for is the educational programs each school offers for their preferred degrees. As mentioned above, private and public education do vary in quality so some private school’s educational programs might have the best return on investment to attend that school compared to a lower quality or less ideal courses to educate you on your preferred major/minor. All schools, including private and public, have better educational programs in certain fields that make them stand out compared to other colleges. For example, attending a college that focuses on all fine arts or even one school with huge funding for that department is a lot more beneficial than attending a big-name private school that may not have as good of an art program. This can somewhat impact people’s decision on the major they want to pursue due to certain people trying to pick a major that leads to a well-paying career that is enough to pay off tuition and any loans. So instead of studying their passion for dancing, they might pick teaching or business to be able to get a higher paying job to cover the cost of the degree compared to how much money their job for their degree would pay. Colleges’ education programs are severely important to decide whether a school or not is worth the investment that will lead them in the right direction to their desired career.

Depending on the student and how much they enjoy traveling, the location might not be as important for them or it can decide which ones they would like to attend. Certain students enjoy traveling abroad and look to study in other countries. This can impact their educational success depending on how well the student obtains the foreign country’s education program. Some countries are known to have better education and knowledge of certain fields compared to others, which might attract intelligent international students to travel across the world to attend college. Also, international students will travel to the United States for new opportunities and take advantage of the education the colleges provide. Things that can interfere with college success would be the distance from home depending on if it interferes with their college education. If it is too far it might be too expensive to constantly go back and forth so they might not be able to finish their education. Students might be more likely to go to college if the location was reasonable for them to make the trip back and forth for all the times to go back. Travel restrictions like not having a car or having to fly to go to school can be barriers to attending college depending on personal preferences to travel considering all economical options. Location of school and the distance from home influence students’ college decisions as well as the odds of them completing college fully.

When attending college, certain demographics may influence your college decision and success in school. One main demographic that can influence your decision to attend and finish college is income. People with lower income may struggle more applying to school and affording tuition in general like a majority of college students. These people have a harder time completing college due to how expensive college is and depending if they take out loans or get scholarships, it can be difficult for families to invest their money into a student’s education. Comparing low income to high income, higher-income students would have a much easier time affording college, which they might even be able to attend a more prestigious college and other resources that assist their completion of college. Another demographic that influences college completion is race. Hispanic and black people are known to have a harder time getting into college and graduating compared to white people. One thing that influences that is colleges tend to give out scholarships to the races who are underrepresented at the university. This is to promote more students from those races to diversify their college by giving them more of an incentive to attend college since some people might also be in a lower income bracket. For gender, it is similar to race in the way the STEM field gives scholarships and has female STEM programs to encourage them to pursue the field due to the lack of women in STEM. Another demographic that also receives scholarships would-be students with disabilities. It is harder for students with learning disabilities to attend and graduate college so the scholarship is an incentive for them to attend school and potentially graduate. College completion for people with learning disabilities is a lot harder and they tend to have a lower chance of finishing college unless they get proper accommodations.

How COVID-19 Has and Will Impact Student Success

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced students to adapt to new ways of learning, particularly through online instruction, due to the closure of schools. The short-term impact of this transition can be seen already, but now there is research estimating the long-term consequences of this; consequences such as earnings losses, welfare, school attainment, and completion. Factors such as income loss, parental characteristics, access to education, the age at which students experienced the shock of COVID-19, and others will be determinants in the success of students (completion of school) and said consequences.

One study focuses on the consequences that certain parental characteristics (parental education and net worth), particularly during the COVID-19 lockdown, will have on the long-term income and welfare of students at different ages (Fuchs-Schündeln et al., 2020). The structural life cycle model that was developed combines public investment through schooling with parental time and resource investments in the production of child human capital at different stages in the children’s development process (Fuchs-Schundeln et al., 2020). On average, they found an increase in the future share of children without a high school degree of 3.8% and a reduction in the share of children with a college degree of 2.7% when school closure and economic recession are accounted for. School closures negatively impact educational attainment across all age groups. The share of children that will drop out of high school increased. This may not seem like a substantial change, but it is important to note because it directly corresponds to the 4.1% increase in the share of children without a high school diploma and a -1.7% decrease in the share of college-educated children (Fuchs-Schundeln et al., 2020). Younger children are found to be the most impacted by school closure. This is because a decrease in human capital at such a young age will most likely lead to lower human capital and optimal investment in the future. This in turn, is expected to lead to lower earnings. Parental time and monetary investments, as well as their responses to the school closures and income shocks, have a big impact on the child’s future and welfare. A reduction in parental investment, when combined with school closure, leads to worse outcomes for children. But it is important to note that the direct effects of the lockdown itself is more significant for children than the additional effect of the recession (Fuchs-Schundeln et al., 2020). The welfare losses of schools closing are substantial. The lack of social interaction and its psychological implications will also negatively impact children economically in the future. The non-cognitive skills of children in a certain age group are presumably going to be underdeveloped compared to children who were of the same age without the shocks of COVID-19, and this is expected to affect their long-term wages. Additionally, parents who have to dedicate more time to taking care of their children may be at more risk of losing their jobs, leading to a decrease in the investment of children. Decreased investment in children and human capital is expected to negatively impact students’ educational attainment and future earnings.

Another study also discusses the effects of school closures on learning and economic outcomes (Azevedo et al., 2021). They conducted three simulations that focused on learning losses at the secondary school level. The first scenario is optimistic, where the average length of school closure is three months. The second is intermediate, where the average length of school closure is five months. The third scenario is pessimistic, in which schools are closed for seven months. They also consider the fact that school years differ in various parts of the world. So they acknowledge that the closing of schools at the beginning of the school year in Latin American countries, which was around the time when the first lockdown began, may have a different effect on students compared to those in the United States, where the school year was almost over. They found that COVID-19 could result in a loss of years of schooling ranging from 0.3 to 0.9 years. Globally, 7 million students could drop out of school due to the income shocks of the pandemic itself (Azevedo et al., 2021). Depending on the scenario, yearly earnings for students could reduce by up to $1,408. Over a student’s lifetime in present value, this loss of earnings could amount up to $25,680. Women, minorities, and people with disabilities are more adversely affected. It will be eye-opening to see how the disparities these groups face will differ in their educational success, learning, and income.

The transition to online learning, especially for an extended period of time, has had an impact on student success as well. Administrative data on ninth-graders from three schools within the same county in China was collected because each school had a different approach to educational practices during the COVID lockdown from February to May 2020 (Clark et al., 2020). One school did not provide any online educational support to students. The two other schools provided online educational support provided by the government that provided access to online recordings of classes and communication between teachers and students. The only difference is that the third school had online sessions that were recorded by higher-quality teachers from other schools, whereas the second school had its own teachers provide the coursework. When compared to schools that did not provide educational support to students during the lockdown, online learning was proven to show an improvement in student performance by 0.22 standard deviations (Clark et al., 2020). Interestingly, academic benefits of online learning were found to not differ for rural or urban students. It was also found that academically weaker students benefited the most from online education, and the performance of top students was not affected (Clark et al., 2020).

Geographic Location and Its Impact on Student Success

Geographic location also has an impact on student success. The effect that the geographical location of secondary schools has on academic performance was investigated (Jovinius, 2015). Specifically, it focused on the Muleba District with three objectives: (1) what factors influence students’ performance, (2) how geographical location affects performance, and (3) what strategies could be implemented to improve student performance. He found that peer group influence, family factors, school factors (such as pupil ratio and environment), parents’ socioeconomic background, culture, and learning facilities all impacted performance. In regard to the school environment: classrooms, libraries, teacher quality, and teaching methods were just some of the variables that affect student achievement (Jovinius, 2015). In addition to this, the paper concluded that the greater distance from home to school correlates to higher levels of dropping out, absences, and early pregnancies. The greater the distance one has to travel to acquire an education can contribute to what, and more importantly, how a child learns that information. A student growing up in a more urban area, who may have easier access to transportation, presumably does not have to be as concerned with traveling to school as opposed to a student growing up in a rural area.

If you were to combine the greater distance some have to travel to acquire education with a poor school environment, one can assume that the students are more likely to face the adverse effects of this. For example, students in more rural areas that have to travel long distances to go to the library to study may find it more difficult if they have to deal with the greater traveling costs, especially if they have a home environment that is not ideal for their ability to study and learn. These students may have difficulty motivating themselves or lack the ability to complete their work. This in turn would lead to lower grades, more obstacles to overcome while dealing with other home and school factors, and therefore a greater chance that they could drop out. One group in particular that would be a good example to use, is teenage mothers. They are already less likely to go to college than their childless peers. So imagine a scenario with a teen mother, who lives in a rural area and is still in high school. Her chances of dropping out are greater already because of the fact that she is a teenage mother. But when combining that fact with the distance she may have to travel to school and those additional costs, that would presumably increase the chances of dropping out even more. Dropping out leads to lower incomes, and the likelihood of these students going back to finish school is low due to the fact that they now have other responsibilities such as taking care of their children, jobs, etc.

So what can be gathered from this? What are the economic implications? The fact that  students that drop out are unlikely to go back and finish school means they are expected to have lower future incomes. Even if they did want to go back to school, they would face more challenges in doing so because of the responsibilities that they have. There are opportunity costs to be considered when going back to school, such as giving up more hours at work. This means in the short term they would probably have even lower wages but they would benefit from higher wages with their future degree. However, they may be discouraged by this loss of income, despite the future benefits, because the immediate costs to them are too detrimental, especially if they already have a low income. So if you also consider the fact that these individuals may have to travel greater distances, they would be even less likely to return to education.

Conclusion

Student success and its determinants such as income status, geographic location, education quality, home life, mental and physical disorders and disabilities, all have economic implications for students’ futures. Barriers to success have a significant impact on the future incomes, level of educational attainment, and home life of those students. Groups such as women, minorities, and people with disabilities are especially adversely affected by these barriers. That is why it is also important to note how people that already face challenges in education completion and student success will be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It will especially be interesting to see in the long-term, what the life of students during this pandemic will play out to be like because of the obstacles that they had to overcome while also combating stressful home situations, lower (or changes in) income, access to the internet to complete school work, etc. It will also be interesting to see how rates and factors of student success after COVID-19 will compare to what it was like before. Despite all the changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is rational to assume that the groups who were adversely affected by certain factors before the pandemic will still be affected the same way afterward. More specifically, students growing up in lower income households who live a distance away from school presumably will still have a higher chance of dropping out. Students with disabilities will still face challenges in completing their education, and may just take more time to do so. Teenage mothers will still face economic and financial losses due to the fact that they have the responsibility of taking care of their children and may not be able to go on to complete college. The success of students in completing their education is a crucial factor for what life after college will look like for them. It will impact their future incomes, investments (especially in their children), and will directly impact the success of their descendants.

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