Date of Award

12-2018

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Education, Leadership and Public Service

Program

Other

Program

Higher Education and Student Affairs

First Advisor/Chairperson

Lisa Eckert

Abstract

Nonmetropolitan students in higher education are an understudied population. This thesis uses data from the freshman class of 2011 at a mid-sized nonmetropolitan university to examine the success of nonmetro students at a nonmetro university. The data studied addresses the similarities and dissimilarities between metro and nonmetro students in the cohort in a number of categories: student location of origin, time to degree completion, whether a degree was attained, grade point average of graduating students, type of degree sought, and type of degree attained. Differences were found in the success rates of metro and nonmetro students at the institution. There was higher than the national average percentage of nonmetro students in the cohort. Nonmetro graduating grade point averages were not significantly different from metro student grade point averages. However, nonmetro students sought and obtained less bachelor’s degrees than metro students, a higher percentage of nonmetropolitan students than metro students did not finish a degree, and nonmetro students took longer to complete a degree than metro students.

Access Type

Open Access

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