Studies Focus on Factors That Influence Freshmen's Success

By Peter Schmidt

Three new studies of college freshmen suggest that even the most promising can run into academic difficulties as a long-term consequence of experiences like attending a violent or run-down high school or being raised by parents who never went to college.

And two of the studies call into question a large body of research on the educational benefits of racial and ethnic diversity on campuses, concluding that most first-year students do not reap any gains from diversity that can