Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ)
Category: Pathways to and Through Postsecondary
Prospective college students benefit from tailored advising and guidance about whether, where, and how to enroll. Support for college planning drops sharply after students leave high school, however, leaving non-traditional students largely on their own. We study Navigate Reconnect, a Tennessee advising program that intends to fill this gap. We evaluate how Navigate Reconnect access and participation relate to post-secondary enrollment, credential completion, and short-term workforce outcomes. First, we link expansion of the Reconnect model across Tennessee to growth in non-traditional student enrollment at colleges and universities in or near a Tennessee Reconnect Community. Then, we use a matched difference-in-difference framework to estimate the effect of Reconnect participation on individual post-secondary and workforce outcomes. Reconnect participation coincides with a spike in applications for unemployment benefits and a small decline in earnings. Relative to matched non-participants, Reconnectors earn 53% more post-secondary certificates over the three years following program intake, along with more than 4.5 times as many associate’s degrees and 22% more bachelor’s degrees. At the end of three years Reconnectors are 3% more likely to have in-state employment.
Keywords
Non-traditional students, college advising, program evaluation
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/fk39-ny33
