Engineering professors win research grant

To further their research of enrollment and attrition trends, three economics professors have been awarded a grant by The Association for Institutional Research.

With their $27,642 grant, Leslie Stratton, associate economics professor, James Wetzel, economics professor and Dennis O’Toole, associate economics professor, will continue to study data from 1989 to 1990 to assess enrollment patterns and graduation rates on the national level. The random sample of students can show the research team if a student is enrolled in college consistently for four years or if they are in and out.

Many factors contribute to the studies results. The research team knows the participants’ tuition level, financial aide level, gender, race and family education, Stratton said, which has been collected by several organizations. The students in the data set are aware of the study and sign documents in order to participate.

Wetzel added that the research team is able to look at all of the factors at once in order to get a clear understanding of the students’ actions. For example, he said, there are a large number of students working and attending college at the same time.

Students who work full time and go to college full time, O’Toole said, often do poorly in school and have a high dropout rate. Those who attend part time, he said, often perform better in school.

It is important for the three professors to look at the national data, Stratton said, because a student might drop out of one state college and enter a college in another state. Some students, called “stepouts,” leave college for a period of time and then return.

“There’s a lot of movement activity,” Stratton said.

Some students, O’Toole said, decided to get married and have a family before entering college. This trend was popular in the mid 1980s, but it is not expected to continue, he said.

There also appears to be a national trend called re-tooling, Wetzel said. Adults in their late twenties and early thirties with college degrees are returning to college to update their skills.

Stratton also noted that in times of high unemployment, students are more likely to enroll in college full time.

Two years ago, she said, the group of three received the Best Paper Award from the Association for Institutional Research. Using the same data set as in the most recent study, the economists looked at initial enrollment and whether the students enrolled part time or full time.

The group’s interest in the subject peaked when Wetzel and O’Toole got a grant to look at tuition differentials (different tuition rates within a college) for the business school.

“We wouldn’t be able to get the equipment to give our students the latest information,” O’Toole said of the tuition differential.

It was during this time that the group began to look at enrollment trends. For the last 10 years O’Toole, Stratton and Wetzel have been applying economics and statistical concepts to their research.

Their research, Stratton said, will provide valuable information to legislative bodies around the country.

“Our goal is to get some…ways that [colleges] might try and get people enrolled,” O’Toole said.