Assessing the College Impact on Students' Lifetime Educational Aspirations.

Abstract

One way to explore the college impact on students' lifetime educational aspirations is to compare what students say those aspirations were at entry (Time 1) with what students say they are later in their college career (Time 2). The authors used data (N= 36,871) from the most recent national 4-year college user group norms for the ACT College Outcomes Survey (COS) to suggest ways to observe the impact of the institution on students' highest lifetime educational aspirations. Percentages of students aspiring to each of eight (for 2-year colleges) or four (for 4-year colleges) educational levels were summarized for each of the two points in time. Percentages were also summarized for students whose aspirations increased, decreased, or remained the same with respect to each possible number of steps forward and backward in aspiration change.

Introduction

It's a safe bet that most colleges would like to help their students raise their lifetime educational goals. One way to monitor the extent to which your institution is having this effect on students is to compare their highest lifetime educational goals as they were envisioned upon entry with those currently held.

The possibility of measuring changes in students' highest lifetime educational goals came to our attention in earlier research (McLure, Green, Rao, Lester, & Boatwright, 1998) on African American/Black students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). As we analyzed changes over time in lifetime educational goals of students attending HBCUs, we noticed a tendency of Black students more than of non-Black students to change their lifetime educational aspirations upward. However, that observation was incidental to the main focus of that study, and we decided to explore this pattern further.

The purpose of the present study was to explore approaches to understanding the impact of the institution on students' highest lifetime educational aspirations by comparing the difference in aspirations at the time they first enrolled in college (Time 1) to a later time when their college outcomes were assessed (Time 2). To do this, we used a sample of students from the most recent (between January 1, 1995 and September 30, 1999) 4-year college national user group norms for the ACT College Outcomes Survey (COS).

In the Background Information (demographics) section of the COS, students are asked in two questions in Item L to mark the "highest goal you now intend to pursue in your lifetime" and then the "highest goal you had when you first enrolled here" (ACT, 1993; 1988). They respond to each of these two questions by selecting one of eight levels of education listed for that item. The eight levels, from lowest to highest, are (1) Some high school or less; (2) High school diploma or GED certificate; (3) Some college, no degree/certificate; (4) Vocational/technical degree/certificate; (5) Associate degree; (6) Bachelor's degree; (7) Master's degree (MS, MA, MBA); and (8) Doctorate/professional degree (PhD, MD, EdD, JD).