Examining the Persistence Factors for Minority and White Female Students at Rural Community Colleges in Ohio

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine persistence factors of Minority and White female students at three rural community colleges in Ohio. The study also examined the demographic characteristics of female Ohio rural community college students. The independent variables in this study were race (White, Minority), gender, first-year-to-college status (first year, non-first year), and enrollment status (enrolled, non-enrolled). The dependent variables in this study were the ten College Persistence Questionnaire factors: academic integration, financial stress, social integration, degree commitment, collegiate stress, advising, scholastic conscientiousness, institutional commitment, academic motivation, and academic efficacy. Descriptive statistics examined the demographic characteristics of female community college students. Inferential statistics (MANOVA, Multivariate regression, Chi-Square) were employed to examine the relationships between the independent and dependent variables. The overall findings indicate Minority female students’ Degree Commitment, Scholastic Conscientiousness and Institutional Commitment were lower than that of White female students. In addition, the results of enrolled versus non-enrolled suggested female students who were enrolled had lower Degree Commitment, Academic Motivation and Academic Efficacy than that of female students who were not enrolled. Last, the results indicate that there is no significant main effect of first year to college (first-year versus non-first year) on any of the ten College Persistence Factors and that a statistically significant relationship was found between the father’s education.