Academic achievement and retention rate of students who did and did not participate in a university summer bridge program

Universities and colleges have long touted the importance of student retention. Faced with the fiscal costs associated with not retaining students, campuses have made an even stronger commitment of resources to increase graduation rates using summer bridge programs. Unfortunately, little research exists on the effectiveness of summer bridge programs as a tool to enhance academic achievement as measured by retention and graduation rates.; The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in the academic achievement of students who participated in the University of Nevada's summer bridge programs (1995 and 1996) and students with similar background characteristics including gender, ethnicity, high school GPA, and ACT test scores who did not participate in the programs.; The results of the t-test analyses revealed that although students who participated in the summer bridge programs had higher mean first term college GPAs, they were not significantly different from the students with similar background characteristics who did not participate in the programs. The results of the chi-square analyses revealed a significant difference in retention and graduation rates for students who participated in the summer bridge program the second year (1996) when compared to a similar group of students who did not participate in the program. Although the students who participated in the summer bridge program in 1995 had higher graduation and retention rates than students who did not participate the summer bridge program, the results were not determined to be significant.; The implications of the study are: (1) other universities and colleges should use control factors such as ethnicity, gender, high school GPA and ACT test scores to better assess whether or not their summer bridge programs are effective tools for enhancing academic achievement; (2) additional studies should be conducted to determine if there were any differences in the curriculum or the methods of instruction between the two years of the summer bridge program; (3) more studies are needed for summer bridge programs to determine if they are worth the investment of significant campus resources.