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Across the United States, colleges and universities must dynamically respond to changes in population demographics and demand in order to meet enrollment goals. As institutions have adapted to a shifting educational landscape, tuition discounting has become a prevalent mechanism utilized within strategic enrollment management. While many students receive high tuition discounts to attend four-year institutions, other low-grant students pay much larger portions of a steadily rising sticker price. While these discounting strategies are an established component of the enrollment process, further research is needed to examine how these strategies impact retention among low-grant students. This study utilized a descriptive approach to specifically explore how low tuition discounting impacted low-grant, high-paying student retention at a small, private, faith-based liberal arts university in the Midwest. More specifically, freshmen retention was explored by focusing on withdrawal among students enrolled at various grant levels during their first year. Institutional grant data was paired with student withdrawal rates to statistically describe retention in relation to overall grant levels. Additionally, university exit interview documents were categorically summarized and paired with grant data to provide a more robust picture of how low-grant, high-paying status impacted withdrawal decisions. Findings demonstrated that grant levels are a statistically significant consideration for freshmen retention, with low-grant, high-paying students withdrawing at a higher rate than their higher grant, lower-paying peers. Top categorical withdrawal reasons among low-grant, high-paying students included finances, major program, dismissal (academic), and distance from home (far). This study conceptually contributes to retention literature by situating student withdrawal within the general business model of higher education described by Brown and Gross (2015), as well as the Proposed Conceptual Model of Student Success (Perna & Thomas, 2008). This study also benefits the broader field of higher education by highlighting the intersection of enrollment, retention, and pricing. Through robust descriptive analysis, this research can assist strategic enrollment management professionals and other higher education leaders as they weigh new considerations for responding to the changes and challenges ahead. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Damage is often seen as an important consideration when conducting partial harvests in hardwood stands, as excessive damage to residual trees will significantly reduce the potential value of the residual stand. Damage to harvested logs, especially hardwood saw and veneer logs can be an even more important concern relative to value loss associated with log degrade. The log damage and value loss were examined by harvesting system, felling function, species, and damage type in central Appalachia. Observations were made of all grade logs during the felling, skidding, decking/sorting, and loading functions of the harvesting operations. Saw logs or veneer logs sustaining damage to the bark or cambium were recorded with additional information obtained for damage location, damage volume, damage type, and possible cause of the damage. Data were analyzed statistically to determine and rank the phases of the harvesting process relative to potential damage and value loss to hardwood logs. Results indicated that, overall, manual harvesting systems cause more damage to harvested logs than mechanized harvesting systems, mostly due to the manual felling function.