| Sara Rab
University of Pennsylvania
Swirling students: Putting a new spin on college attrition
FINAL REPORT:
Significant stratification exists within the higher education system. Disadvantaged, minority and male undergraduates have lower bachelor' degree completion rates than other comparable students. Researchers have examined several aspects of the postsecondary experience in an effort to identify the factors with the greatest impact on degree completion. But these largely institutional models of college retention place a greater emphasis on student involvement in single institutions than on integration into the system of higher education overall. This approach to college retention faces challenges by the growth of multi-institutional attendance and discontinuous enrollment. Several observers of higher education in both the policy and research worlds have noted the emergence of new forms of postsecondary attendance, broadly called Òswirling.Ó
This dissertation uses national longitudinal postsecondary transcript data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey to identify and clarify a set of postsecondary pathways (encompassed by the term ÔswirlingÕ) that contribute to stratified degree outcomes in the greatly diversified U.S. system of higher education. Swirling is defined here as multi-institutional attendance with discontinuous enrollment. Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely than economically advantaged students to swirl. In addition, engaging in the swirling is negatively associated with timely bachelor's degree completion. Thus, swirling helps to perpetuate the lower degree completion rates of disadvantaged college students.
Social class shapes postsecondary pathways; examining swirling provides an improved understanding of how and why. Clearly, swirling represents a less successful route to degree completion for poor students (involving less selective, less elite institutions), and they are disproportionately likely to follow it. Thus, swirling assists in the continuing reproduction of class inequalities and helps to create new forms of stratification within higher education. Future research should untangle the complex reasons why disadvantaged students swirl, and how it is that movement in, out, and among institutions negatively affects their chances for timely degree completion. Policymakers should consider improving the portability of credits and articulation agreements in an effort to improve completion rates of swirling students, and focus on creating a more integrated system of higher education that retains students of all backgrounds to full degree completion.
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