Title: What students don't know may hurt them
Description: The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to investigate the perceptions that students have about the academic and financial aspects of college, the reality they experience during their first year of college enrollment, and how, if at all, they handle any misperceptions they may have had over the course of their first year. Data (three surveys, thirty hours of interviews, and academic and financial documents) were collected over the 2007-2008 school year from 58 low-income, first-year college students who graduated from the Mid-Atlantic City Public Schools (MACPS). Participants in this study are members of the second cohort of the Going to College Foundation's (GCF) Postsecondary Success Project, which provides low-income MACPS graduates with postsecondary support services such as academic tutoring, study skills workshops and last-dollar grants. Ninety-seven percent of students in this sample identified as African American and 57 percent are the first in their families to go to college.

This dissertation consists of a brief introduction and three articles. The first article uses a mixed-methods analysis of the survey and interview data to examine participants' pre-college academic perceptions, first-year academic experiences and how, if at all, they coped with their academic misperceptions in the course of their first year in college. The second article uses a qualitative analysis of the interview data to explore participants' pre-college perceptions of college costs and financial aid, their first-year financial experiences and how, if at all, they coped with their misperceptions of postsecondary finances in the course of their first year in college. The third article is designed to understand more about how participants describe their experience of the GCF program and how, if at all, GCF influenced their perspectives of college and how they dealt with any postsecondary misperceptions they may have had over the course of their first year of enrollment. Understanding more about the information that students have about college before they enroll and how they deal with their misperceptions during their first year of college may have implications for GCF and other postsecondary support programs that are designed to help students transition to and succeed in higher education.
Subjects: Secondary Education, Aims and objectives, College attendance, Low-income college students, Higher Education
Places: United States