UC Irvine

Students pursuing postsecondary education in the United States have a tremendous amount of options available to them across programs and institutions. Many students beginning college believe their first enrollment decision is conclusive: the eventual outcomes of their time and financial investments are determined by their success at the school and program they chose. However, student pathways do not always start and end at the same place. This dissertation begins to tackle the complexities of these student enrollments. Study 1 asks the question: outside of conventional single institution attendance and direct community college-to-four-year college transfer, what are the pathways students are taking across colleges after beginning postsecondary education? This study creates a typology of these student patterns and observes the students and outcomes associated with each. Study 1 shows how we can begin to understand these complex patterns so that we can learn more about what students are doing, what works and what doesn’t. Study 2 then takes a much deeper look into a specific multi-institutional pattern: simultaneous enrollment. This study leverages national transcript data to categorize simultaneous enrollment and to create a microcosm of what we can learn about the students who choose to attend multiple colleges at once. Study 2 fills gaps in our knowledge of enrollment behavior, providing insights across several levels of data and showing what can be learned by looking closely at full student paths. Finally, Study 3 estimates a causal labor market effect for a specific enrollment pattern: enrolling in a noncredit program after dropping out of a traditional for-credit curriculum. This study uses employment data and quasi-experimental methods to inform whether noncredit can be a beneficial choice for these students. Study 3 showcases how we can learn about the causal outcomes of these enrollment decisions to help make better recommendations and interventions to allow students to choose the best options for them.