The hurdles we overcome : factors and processes influencing the social and academic integration of non-traditional college students

This study examines the factors that lead to attrition among low-income students enrolled in the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) at Humboldt State University, a small rural four-year residential college in northwestern California. The study encompasses three areas of investigation. Part one and two of the study is based on the leading research in the area of student attrition and is modeled after the work of Bean (1990), Tinto (1993), and Cabrera, Castaneda, Nora, and Hengstler (1992), and identifies the non-cognitive factors affecting EOP students, specifically in regard to their academic integration, their social integration, their institutional commitment, and their intent to persist at the institution. Part three of the study identifies indicators that measure the students' high school experiences and identifies which of those experiences correlate with the students' subsequent college experiences. The identification of such correlations suggest that these high school indicators could serve as a predictor for the students' subsequent college integration, institutional commitment and persistence at Humboldt State University. And part four of this study identifies how student adaptation strategies influence the continuity of the students' experiences between high school and college. This would provide a better understanding of how the students' individual agency influences their transition into college and how this individual agency affects the reliability of high school indicators as predictors for subsequent college experiences. The results of the study confirm the findings of earlier research, showing that academic and social integration have a powerful influence on EOP students' in regard to their institutional commitment and in regard to their intent to persist at Humboldt State University. Additional factors found to influence institutional commitment and persistence included peer and parental encouragement for attending Humboldt State University, peer group influences regarding the academic goals of the institution, and the students' level of involvement with their academics. The study also revealed that white students benefīted more from the cultural bias inherent within the institution and that students of color faced larger challenges in regard to their social and academic integration, as well as in regard to their institutional commitment and their intent to persist at Humboldt State University. The study also found two high school measures that had strong correlations with the students' subsequent college experiences, and which could serve as predictive indicators for entering students. These high school measures included peer group influences regarding the academic goals of the institution, and the students' level of involvement with the academic curriculum. And finally, the study found that when students' used an integrative adaptation strategy during their transition into college, the significant correlations found between their high school and college experiences improved, suggesting that individual agency does influence the level of continuity during the students' transition between high school and college.