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Social and behavioral skills are important predictors of a variety of adult outcomes, including income, educational attainment, and risky behaviors (Heckman, Stixrud, and Urzua 2006). Social and behavioral skills have also been found to predict the development of cognitive skills as students with greater ability to focus, stay organized, control their anger, and work well with others actually learn more in school (Jennings and DiPrete 2010). In this study we use data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study kindergarten and birth cohorts to examine race/ethnic and socioeconomic gaps in social and behavioral skills as students enter and progress through elementary school, the mechanisms that explain these gaps, and the extent to which gaps in these skills mediate achievement gaps. We find that there are significant differences in social and behavioral skills at school entry by student race/ethnicity and income-level. The majority of the race/ethnic differences at school entry are accounted for by socioeconomic background. Social and behavioral skills are consistently related to achievement in math and reading and explain 10 to 30 percent of the black-white gap and the gap between high and low income students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By facilitating transfer to four-year institutions, community colleges have the potential to provide an important alternative pathway to the baccalaureate degree, especially for disadvantaged youth. However, questions remain about whether community college transfers are equally as likely to persist to the baccalaureate compared to their peers who initially enroll in four-year institutions. In this paper we compare the hazard of attrition from a four-year college among community college transfer students and initial four-year students. We use a discrete-time hazard model to control for term by term credit accumulation and compare the results of alternative approaches to controlling for selection into first college type. The results from this study demonstrate that any disadvantage in the odds of attrition from a four-year institution experienced by community college transfers is explained entirely by differences in enrollment intensity, academic achievement, and socioeconomic background—not by any institutional features of community colleges that inhibit educational attainment. Therefore, the community college appears to be an effective route to a bachelor's degree for students who transfer. The effect of community colleges on the attainment of students who fail to transfer, however, remains unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study I analyze data collected by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) to determine the impact of experiences with racial diversity in college on students? racial attitudes and values at a small liberal arts university in California. Exposure to diversity during college was found to play an important role in changing students? racial perspectives, net of social background characteristics, although students? pre-college attitudes were found to be the strongest predictors of change in students? attitudes across groups. Findings also suggest that college experiences do not have the same impact on all students. Experiences with diversity in college were found to have more of an impact on shifting the racial perspectives of Asian American students and students from low income families. These racial and economic differences underscore the complexity of the impact of college and the importance of considering individual differences between students. It is clear that the impact of experiences with diversity in college vary in magnitude for different kinds of students and that ascribed variables such as race and family economic background play a significant role. This is evidence of the importance of being sensitive to the possibility that not all students will benefit equally from the same college experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]