A Meta-Analysis of Graduate School Enrollment from Students in the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Program

Abstract

The Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program provides higher education institutions with federal funds to increase the doctoral attainment for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. We conducted a meta-analysis of the impact of the McNair program on graduate program enrollment. After an exhaustive literature search, we found 7 publications containing 13 studies that met the inclusion criteria. From these studies, we found that McNair program students were almost six times as likely to enroll in a graduate program as the comparison group. Nonetheless, there was much unexplained variability in effects across studies.

Keywords

• McNair Scholars Program
• meta-analysis
• graduate school enrollment
• program evaluation