Trends and Discrepancies in Program Completion Rates in a Dual Enrollment Program

Graduation date: 2013The United States is struggling to improve the educational attainment of high school students in order to meet workforce needs and remain internationally competitive. Fewer than 80% of U.S. students graduate from high school despite 30 years of policy initiatives aimed at improving graduation rates. This study focuses on completion rates within one national network, referred to as Breaking Barriers, which provides dual enrollment programs in over 20 states to students who have or are in danger of dropping out of high school. This student population (high school drop-outs) is statistically more likely to be in underrepresented student populations. In this research, underrepresented student populations refer to student groups who have been depicted in the literature as having higher high school dropout rates, including students of color- specifically black, Latino, and Native American students, males, and students with low socioeconomic status. Through applying Astin’s Input-Environment-Outcomes (I-E-O Framework) to a logistic regres-sion analysis of program disenrollment, this study seeks to determine what trends and discrepan-cies may exist in program disenrollment. The analysis finds certain populations, specifically fe-males, white students, and students with higher levels of socioeconomic status have a greater chance of program completion. Program GPA was the only variable which maintained signifi-cance at the 1% level, which indicates predictors of disenrollment within Breaking Barriers are comparable to those identified in literature examining high school dropout predictors