Ghiloni 3 3
Introduction
According to ACT Inc., only 52.8 percent of all students who enter a four-year college graduate within five years. Also from the years 1983 to 1997, in eleven of those thirteen years the graduation rate has dropped and it only seems to be getting worse every year. This is a major epidemic among many colleges and universities across the United States. There are many reasons as to why student retention is so poor and just as many theories as to how to fix this problem. The theory that will be tested today is if being affiliated with a Greek (social) organization improves student success and student retention rates.
With being involved in Greek life and in many facets of student life at The University of Akron over the past 4 years I have truly found the importance of getting involved and being a part of the campus community. Being a part of these organizations will lead to students having a better college experience and improve their retention and success rates throughout college. Personal experience comes into play at this point, for if it were not for the love of my fraternity, I would not have stayed at The University of Akron to receive my undergraduate degree.
This paper will test to see if being a member of Greek life will improve student retention and student success rates. Retention will depict whether or not a student makes it from one year to the next. Student success rates will measure a students GPA and if the student graduates within five years or not. Five years was used to keep with the average notation of it taking most average students five year to gain their undergraduate degree. The trend of other papers tended to use six years as the average graduation rate rather than five years, but my data was not as detailed for the sixth year as it was for the other five. Therefore I made the decision to stay with a standard five years, also because the average person believes that five years is an acceptable amount of time to graduate within and six years is just a bit too long.
Today, six out of every ten jobs require some postsecondary education and training
(Carnevale & Desrochers, 2003). This finding shows just how important it is for newly graduated high school students go to college and gain postsecondary education. Currently almost half of all college students do not graduate the numbers do not result to be 60 percent of the American work force having postsecondary training.
Theoretical Framework and Analysis
To stay in good standing in a Greek organization there are certain academic guidelines that each member must uphold. If the lure of Greek Life is true and it is good enough to do anything to stay a part of the brotherhood and sisterhood that Greek Life brings to the table. Therefore members’ grades will stay above the threshold to continue to be apart of these organizations. The organization also helps students not only improve their grades, but also their campus involvement, leadership skills, and many other life skills that will be useful in their professional life.
Common sense would claim that these requirements would improve the student and the organization as a whole. Why then, is it that the stereotype of fraternities and sororities is always geared around drinking, hazing, and being rude, immature, and poor students? As a member of a Greek organization these stereotypes are not accurate. This paper will investigate if Greeks have a higher GPA on campus than non-Greek students. Along with showing that being a member of a Greek organization can also help improve the possibility of returning for ones second year of college and graduate with five years of starting college.
Review of Empirical Literature
The ACT Policy Report shows findings that indicate along with many other factors that social involvement has a positive relationship to student retention. It also shows that high school GPA and ACT scores have a positive relationship on college retention. Because of this study these two factors will be accounted for in my study. In this study the second recommendation that is made states that Universities should “Take an integrated approach in their retention efforts that incorporates both academic and non-academic factors into the design and development of programs to create a socially inclusive and supportive academic environment that addresses the social, emotional, and academic needs of students.” My study will focus on one of the non-academic factors: being affiliated with a Greek organization.
Lowther and Langley use a Chi-Square test to determine if living on campus and group affiliations (Greek Life) affects retention rates. The population has been adjusted for their ACT scores, as might be expected, higher test scores generally result in higher first year retention rates, both for those who live on-campus and those who live off-campus. Greek affiliation for male students has a strong relationship to first year retention at most levels of ACT score, a relationship not seen between housing choice and retention. For female students, Greek affiliation also is generally related to first year retention, although not significantly at higher ACT ranges. Further, for females, lack of Greek affiliation, is related to non-retention at every ACT level. Since Greek affiliation appears to have so much stronger an impact on first-year retention, this suggests that it is not housing choice alone, but the sense of affiliation and involvement that helps the student to attain academically and want to remain in attendance.
Mangold, Bean, and Adams look at the impact of intercollegiate athletics on graduation rates. This study is relevant to this paper because the authors focus exclusively “on how the graduation rate of student athletes is affected by their participation in intercollegiate athletic programs.” (Mangold 541). This in essence is the same study just on a different group of students. Their paper examines the combined effects of the independent variable on graduation rates using a standard ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. Their results show a negative relationship between successful intercollegiate sports and graduation rates.
Data
The data that has been collected was done so specifically for this project. It comes from Institutional Research from The University of Akron. All of the data is from incoming freshman from the fall 2002, spring 2003, fall 2003, and spring 2004 semesters. All of the collected data is from official transcripts, documents, or from what was reported on the students’ application.
Model Specification and Development of Results
There will be two different measurements for student success and one for the retention of students. The measurements for student success will include their final GPA when their degree was awarded to them, and the percentage of students who graduate within five years. Retention is defined by if a student returns for their second year of college. This will be shown by the percentages of students who return for their second year and compared with the two groups of Greeks vs. non-Greeks.
The first basic analysis looks at basic averages, totals, and percentages using GPA (both high school and undergraduate), graduation rates, ACT scores, and if they are a member of Greek life to see which group (Greek vs. non-Greek) of students has higher retention and success rates.
The success of a student is often measured by their grade point average, another success rate that will be used is if they have received their degree in five years. The average GPA of Greek students who received degrees at The University of Akron is 3.252. Where the average GPA of non-Greek students who received degrees at the University of Akron is 3.112. Only a .14 difference, but the significance of being in a Greek organization comes into play when looking at the percentages of how many students actually receive degrees. Of the 373 Greek students 168 of those received their degree with in five years, for a total of 45.1 percent. Of the 5832 non-Greek students only 1317 received their degree with in five years, for a total of only 22.6 percent. This shows that by being a member of a Greek organization one is 22.8 percent more likely to graduate within five years than a student that did not join a Greek organization. These numbers must be taken with a grain of salt because they are not controlled for other factors. These are simply the raw numbers and a regression with controlled variables will be analyzed later in the paper.
Retention rates have been a huge problem at The University of Akron for many years. Retention is defined by a student making it to the second year of college. 82.6 percent of all Greek students return for their second year of school at The University of Akron. For non-Greeks only 60.5 percent of students return for their second year of school. Showing that being a member of Greek life improves retention rates by 22.1 percentage points.
This makes sense because if someone is undecided of whether or not they should stick college out for one more year, by being a member of Greek life they can turn to their brothers and sisters for support and help with their scholastic endeavors. Greek organizations have a structure of study tables and tutoring that will help any student, and a student who is not in that organization will have to go at their problems alone and everyone knows that the structure of many college campuses does not allow for easy access to study tables and tutoring help.
After seeing these results there is one main question that should be asked. Are Greeks and non-Greeks of the same scholastic aptitude? If not, then these results are biased and may not be significant. To test the scholastic aptitude of students I took their high school GPA and their ACT scores, the higher the GPA or score than the higher the scholastic aptitude a student has. The average high school GPA of Greeks is 2.923, where the average GPA of non-Greeks is 3.0, nearly the same and therefore they can be categorized has still having the same scholastic aptitude. We now must move on to ACT scores, the average ACT score for Greeks is a 20.8, and the average ACT score for non-Greeks is a 20. These scores are also very close showing that they still have the same scholastic aptitude.
Regression Analysis
There are three different equations that will be estimated in this paper, they are as follows:
1) Degreegpai = bbFraternityi + b2Agei + b3Hs_Gpai + b4Act_Scorei + b5Ftpti + b6Ethnicityi + b7Genderi + ei
2) Return_Yr_2 = bbFraternityi + b2Agei + b3Hs_Gpai + b4Act_Scorei + b5Ftpti + b6Ethnicityi + b7Genderi + ei
3) Degree_Term = bbFraternityi + b2Agei + b3Hs_Gpai + b4Act_Scorei + b5Ftpti + b6Ethnicityi + b7Genderi + ei,
where Degreegpai is the cumulative GPA of the student when they receive their undergraduate degree, Return_Yr_2 tells us if the student returned for their second year of college, Degree_Term tells us if the student graduated within five years of entering college, Fraternityi tells us if the student is in a fraternity, sorority, or not, Agei is how old the student was when they first started college, Hs_Gpai is the recorded GPA that student had from their high school transcripts, Act_Scorei is the ACT score the student received before entering college, Ftpti tells us if the student was taking classes full time or part time, Ethnicityi tells the ethnicity of the student, and Genderi gives the gender of the student.
These variables and specifications were chosen on both an intuitive sense and many of these variables were used in other empirical papers. Degreegpa uses a standard Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) analysis, where Return_Yr_2 and Degree_Term use a probit analysis because the dependent variable for these equations are binary (1 - 0 variable), Return for second year or not and graduate or not.
Table 1:Means and Variable Definitions
Variable / Total / Greek / Non-Greek
N / Mean / Standard Deveation / N / Mean / Standard Deveation / N / Mean / Standard Deveation
Age / 6205 / 20.383 / 4.58 / 373 / 18.97 / .902 / 5832 / 20.47 / 4.709
FullTime / 6205 / 0.901 / 0.29 / 373 / .97 / .169 / 5832 / .896 / .304
Greek / 6205 / 0.0604 / 0.23 / - / - / - / - / - / -
Degreegpa / 1604 / 3.1276 / 0.49 / 168 / 3.25 / .39 / 1436 / 3.11 / .502
Return_Yr_2 / 6205 / 0.618 / 0.48 / 373 / .825 / .379 / 5832 / .604 / .488
Hs_Gpa / 5456 / 2.8188 / 0.72 / 364 / 2.92 / .70 / 5092 / 2.81 / .722
Act_Score / 4846 / 20.176 / 4.27 / 342 / 20.82 / 3.99 / 24504 / 20.12 / 4.28
White / 6009 / 0.8006 / 0.39 / 373 / .922 / .268 / 5832 / .799 / .400
Male / 6009 / 0.4949 / 0.50 / 373 / .522 / .500 / 5832 / .494 / .500
Variable Definitions
Age / Age at time of first enrollment
FT / Formatted 1 = Full time enrolment, 0 = Part time enrolment
Male / Formatted 1 = male, 0 = female
White / Formatted 1 = white, 0 = black
Greek / Formatted 1 = Greek, 0 = Non-Greek
Degreegpa / Final GPA for degree awarded
Degree Term / Formatted 1 = received degree, 0 = did not receive degree
Return Yr 2 / 1 = returned; 0 = did not return to 2nd year
Hs Gpa / High School GPA from undergraduate application
Act Score / ACT Score from undergraduate application
The table of means identifies the characteristics of the variables along with the exact definition of each variable. This table will be useful in understanding the entire data set and being able to make any references to the data as a whole. The next table shows the OLS results of the Degree GPA that is received by students when receiving their bachelor’s degree.
Table 2: Degreegpa, OLS Regression (Standard Error)Variable / Total / White / Black / Male / Female
Intercept / .67726 ** (.33365) / .70696 ** (.35627) / .21269 (1.00007) / -.12007 (.48861) / 1.2667 *** (.48872)
Greek / .15419 *** (.03760) / .13313 *** (.03986) / .36942 *** (.12150) / .17696 *** (.05593) / .12718 ** (.05263)
Age / .05928 *** (.01619) / .06031 *** (.01731) / .08820 ** (.04940) / .09423 *** (.02413) / .03115 (02276)
Hs_Gpa / .18345 *** (.02464) / .18631 *** (.02648) / .20976 *** (.07192) / .19623 *** (.03760) / .17924 *** (.03414)
Act_Score / .01945 *** (.00384) / .01850 *** (.00406) / .03086 ** (.01601) / .01857 *** (.00581) / .01884 *** (.00532)
FT / .31866 *** (.11169) / .32765 *** (.12493) / -.08904 (.27884) / .27389 * (.15152) / .27722 (.18267)
White / .04480 (.05743) / - - / - - / .04389 (.09747) / .05587 (.07210)
Male / -.15941 *** (.15941) / -.15474 *** (.02576) / -.17055 * (.09919) / - - / - -
Adj R-Sq / .1783 / .1670 / .2909 / .1778 / .1405
* Significant at 90% level
** Significant at 95% level
*** Significant at 99% level
These results do not seem to show the most importance or be able to explain much of the model, but this is due to both Greeks and independents have nearly the same scholastic aptitude has was shown in a previous section having nearly the same average ACT and high school GPA’s. In all instances: white, black, male, and female all show a slight improvement in the GPA that was received. Blacks showing the most improvement by joining a Greek organization, and males coming in second by having the next largest improvement in their own GPA by joining Greek Life. The Greek variable gives us confidence levels at or above the 99 percent level. Full time students generally perform better in school because that is their main focus where people that only attend part time have other obligations such as a full time job and a family that they must protect and be there for first. With this knowledge being a full time student also leads to a higher GPA in all cases at the 90 percent confidence level except for black students which has no statistical significant which could explain the negative results with improvement in GPA going to a part time student.