UC Davis

Equity gaps are present on who enters and completes college where racially minoritized and low-income students are less likely to do either compared to White and more affluent students. My dissertation is comprised of two papers. The first paper examines an access barrier—submitting a FAFSA—and the second examines equity activities at Californian community colleges to help students persist and complete.

My first paper examines FAFSA submission rates and if there are inequalities by race and sex for California’s 2018 high school graduates. I also explore the school characteristics associated with higher FAFSA completion rates using multilevel logistic models. I find that out of low-income and high achieving students (i.e., students that have at least a 3.0 GPA when they graduate high school), 85 percent of Asian students submit a FAFSA making them the most likely to do so. Native Indian/Alaska Native students are the least likely to submit a FAFSA as only 60 percent submit one. White students are the second least likely to submit one with just 68 percent submitting a FAFSA. Inequities by race and sex are also present where females are consistently more likely to submit a FAFSA compared to their male counterparts. The multilevel analysis finds that four school characteristics are associated with the odds of a student submitting a FAFSA—the share of a students that are socioeconomically disadvantaged, the share of classes offered that are A-G, the share of students who pass the English Language Arts section of California’s standardized test, and the share of 12th graders who complete the A-G sequence. All four characteristics increase a student’s odds of submitting a FAFSA as the characteristic increases. Differences are present by student racial background.

My second paper provides an analysis of the California Community Colleges 2020 Annual Reports. In these reports colleges give an update on how they are spending equity funds and the progress on activities for selected equity goals based on their three-year Student Equity Plans. These goals are based on different student groups (e.g., race, income, veteran) and metrics (e.g., enrollment, completing college level math and English, and completion). I document and analyze the common activities colleges are using to close equity gaps and how they are spending their equity funds. While colleges reported on a variety of activities to close gaps for their metric goals, counseling/course scheduling and academic support are the two activities most frequently reported. However, some differences are present across the colleges based on regions and college characteristics (e.g., size, share of Promise students, staff racial background). Two concerning findings is the prevalence of cultural awareness activities being reported, as well as the number of activities reported for all students. Both raise questions if they will help close equity gaps. Finally, colleges are spending most of their funds on salaries. This is unsurprising given counseling was the most common activity category, with staff resources as the fourth most common category. What is unknown is if colleges are creating new programs with new positions or are they using funds to cover salaries for existing positions.