Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of local, named, need-based scholarships on the persistence of remediated, community college students. This study sought to connect the research on college-student persistence, remedialEducation, and need-based scholarships. Although there is a plethora of research on why college students depart without earning a degree, there is a dearth of such work focused solely on community college students. There have also been a considerable number of studies on remedialEducation, but none have tied-in how the remedial student's self-efficacy can be increased by awarding them a scholarship, thereby improving their persistence rates. This is likely due to scholarships normally being limited to exceptional students, not the middling community college students who are required to take remedial reading, writing, or mathematics. However, the situation is a little different at Midwest Community College where such practices have become commonplace. Fifteen participants who matched all of this study's criteria were interviewed for this mixed-methods study after descriptive data was collected about them. These 15 participants were culled from the 4,678 first-time, associate-degree seeking students who began in the fall 2004 term at Midwest. This study used the industry-wide standard measurement of 150% time frame to earn a degree, which is three years for a two-year associate's degree. The overall graduation rate for this cohort was 22%. The graduation rate for the remedial students in this cohort was only 7%. This study sought to locate and interview as many of the 70 remedial students as possible, who persisted to graduate within the 150% timeframe and who had also received a scholarship. Eventually, over the course of seven months, 15 students were located and interviewed. Their stories shed light on how these, the most at-risk for dropping out, persevered to earn their associate's degrees. It also shed light on how receiving a scholarship boosted their belief in themselves, their self-efficacy.

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