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As standardized tests continue to wane in the influence of college admissions, higher education institutions use other sociocultural and academic signals to determine the “right” fit for their institution. Extracurricular activities (EAs) that students and parents cultivate throughout high school help provide these signals. Though researchers typically consider the intensity (total hours) and breadth (number of EAs) in their analyzes, few consider EAs as a portfolio. Qualitative studies highlight how parents develop a cultural omnivore steeped in the traditions of the Athenian ideal of arts, athletics, and academics, known as the Renaissance student. Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, this quantitative study examines how students are concurrently involved in art, athletic, and academic EAs during the 12th grade in high school. Compared to other college-going students, Renaissance students are more likely to attend highly selective institutions, participate in institutionally sponsored college athletics, and graduate with a bachelor’s degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Wabash National Study on Liberal Arts Education and a latent class analysis of 28 outside-the-classroom activities and behaviors, we developed a typology of outside-the-classroom student engagement during the first year of college. We find ten classes of student involvement: academic artist, party athlete, serious athlete, conventional non-worker, disengaged, maximizer, moderate worker, detached partier, involved partier, and religious. Next, we examine the relationship between latent classes and students' characteristics through a multinomial logistic regression analysis. Students reporting as first-generation or racially minoritized are overrepresented in the disengaged and involved partier classes. We found an overrepresentation of White students across all party classes. Students reporting as female were likelier to be members of the religious, moderate worker, and disengaged classes and not to be members of the party classes. Federal grant recipients were likelier to be in the academic artist and moderate worker classes. We discuss other sociocultural, economic, and academic relationships in the paper. Next, we explore the relationship of latent class to academic and developmental outcomes. We find academic artists as the only class with a significant positive relationship across the seven dependent measures. Involved partier, moderate worker, and religious classes have positive relationships with at least five dependent measures. The detached partier and party athlete classes have the lowest first-year GPAs of all latent classes. Finally, we discuss the relationships of latent classes, related institutional policy implications, and directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though many studies explore arts participation at the P-12 level and attendance at the adult level, there remains little to no exploration on who attends arts events throughout college. Being an egalitarian period of life where on-campus arts programing remains either free or at a reduced cost, college may be one of the last areas to cultivate long-term consumers of the arts. This study uses a sample of 7,857 students from the Wabash National Study on Liberal Arts Education to understand student attendance of the arts during the first-year of college. The study tests how elements of socio-demographic characteristics, human capital, habitus, and social capital influence student attendance of arts programing. The study discusses ideas concerning future research of arts attendance and improvement of attendance while in college. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses the Wabash National Study on Liberal Arts Education to understand student study abroad participation while holding a student's prior intent to study abroad constant. The study augments previous use of the data set by (1) holding intent to study abroad constant across models and (2) focusing on study abroad participation and the socioeconomic construct of parental education. Consistent with theories of high-brow embodied cultural capital and effectively maintained inequality, students of advanced degree parents are more likely to study abroad after holding intent to study abroad and the various forms of capital constant. Intent to study abroad, gender, prior and current academic characteristics, university type, diverse coursework, orientation towards diversity, non-classroom faculty interactions, and co-curricular involvement have associations with study abroad participation. After controlling for intent to study abroad, individual analyses of student socioeconomic status indicate that intent to participate, academic achievement, and liberal arts institution attendance remain salient for increasing study abroad participation, and some other factors had heterogeneous associations among subgroups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The objective of this study is to examine the potential co-occurrence of basic needs insecurity and mental health problems among community college students. These barriers to student success are gaining significant attention from college leaders and scholars, but they are often addressed in isolation, ignoring the potential reinforcing nature of these challenges. Method: We use data from a national survey of community college students to examine the relationship between experiences of basic needs insecurity and mental health problems, and investigate the support systems that students rely on for help. Results: Findings indicate that students who experience basic needs insecurity are substantively and significantly more likely than their materially secure peers to report depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, planning, or attempt, even after accounting for background characteristics. Those with both food and housing insecurities are even more likely to report mental health problems and the likelihood is positively associated with severity of material hardship. Given limited institutional supports, students often rely on friends or family for emotional and mental support. Receipt of social support is higher among those with mental health challenges, but it also varies by students' basic needs security status. This suggests that students facing the dual challenges of basic needs insecurity and mental health problems may have exhausted this important social resource. Contributions: This study raises awareness about the prevalent co-occurrence of basic needs insecurity and mental health problems, and encourages a more integrated institutionalized approach to serving students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]