Introduction

As the composition of research universities becomes increasingly diverse, it becomes even more important for campuses to ensure that they have inclusive and equitable environments that are academically and financially supportive for their students. Campus climates that are inclusive, supportive, and affirming are created through intentional efforts. Packard (2013) claimed that “the presence of a racially diverse group of students is a necessary but insufficient condition for producing positive effects, noting that diversity must be actively attended to or “activated” order to realize potential positive effects” (p. 145).

In this chapter, we draw together research on campus climate for diversity, academic experiences, and the financial conditions of students to examine how these three factors impact student academic outcomes. While research on each of these topics is growing rapidly, there are few researchers who examine differences in these experiences across racial/ethnic groups or for international and immigrant students—and fewer still that explore how these experiences shape student outcomes. In order to add to the existing literature we used data collected from the Student in the Research University Survey (SERU) administered at the University of Iowa during the 2013 spring semester to examine differences in how these marginalized populations responded to questions regarding their experience with campus climate, academic support, and financial concern.

Campus climate, academic experiences, and financial conditions are all multi-faceted and have been measured by a wide variety of indicators. In this chapter, we focus on two aspects of campus climate (social belonging and respectful treatment), two aspects of academic support and engagement (academic involvement and disengagement in class), and three aspects of student’s financial conditions while attending school (working in paid employment, financial strain, and academic-related financial savings behaviors). After documenting substantial group differences in these experiences, we examine the association between these campus experiences and two academic outcomes: credit accumulation and graduation. In the final analysis of the chapter, we explore whether the impacts of these campus experiences differ for historically underrepresented racial groups, immigrant, and/or international students.

Campus Climate in Higher Education

Creating equitable, inclusive, and supportive campus climates is an increasingly important priority for campuses across the country due in part to the growing diversity of students and also in part to the growing body of research that provides evidence of the importance of this type of environment for student success. Unfortunately, one of the clearest findings from work on campus climates is that White students and students of color have different experiences on campus and different perceptions regarding campus inclusiveness (Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Hurtado, Griffin, Arellano, & Cuellar, 2008), and that immigrant students and international students are also less likely to perceive that they belong or are respected on campus (Curtin, Stewart, & Ostrove, 2013; Stebleton, Soria, & Torres, 2014). Researchers have suggested that these experiences of campus climate negatively impact engagement (Hurtado & Carter, 1997), persistence, and degree completion (Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Museus, Nichols, & Lambert, 2008; Museus, Yi, & Saelua, 2017); however, in a recent review piece, Hurtado, Griffin, Arellano, and Cueller (2008) urged scholars to increase their efforts to examine the impact of campus climate experiences on student academic outcomes.

The most robust literature examining student experiences and academic outcomes including persistence and graduation focuses on academic engagement and involvement. Our work in this vein has established that not only is student engagement in educationally purposeful activities linked to persistence and grades for all students, but these experiences have the strongest impacts on students of color. The limited amount of work exploring academic-related experiences of international students also demonstrates the positive impacts of academic engagement and involvement, and finds either comparable rates of engagement and involvement for international and domestic students (Zhou & Cole, 2017). Similarly, work on immigrant student experiences finds that while having different types of interactions with faculty is positively associated with a sense of belonging on campus, immigrant students are less likely to have these types of interactions with faculty (Stebleton, Soria, Aleixo, & Huesman, 2012).

In response to the rising costs associated with attending college, and the poor labor market prospects for young workers (Gould, 2017), scholars have devoted new attention to the financial conditions faced by students, such as financial strain or food and housing insecurity (Broton & Goldrick-Rab, 2017). While most of this work documents the extent of financial strain or food and housing insecurity, and focuses on single institutions which vary widely in the extent of economic hardships experienced by their students, they all find disturbingly large percentages of students experiencing financial stain and insecurity. One of the financial conditions that has changed considerably is the increase in the percentage of students working for pay while attending college (US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2016). While engaging in some work might be beneficial to students through the accumulation of gainful employment experiences and skills, an excessive amount of work may crowd out time spent studying and achieving academic success (Salisbury, Pascarella, Padgett, & Blaich, 2012), suggesting a curvilinear relationship between the amount of time working and student outcomes. Researchers suggest that increasing hours of work for full-time students is negatively associated with credit accumulation and persistence (Darolia, 2014), but that the associations between working and college outcomes may differ for African American and Latino students (Nuñez & Sansone, 2016). However, there is much less empirical evidence documenting how other financial conditions of students, such as experiencing financial strain and insecurity differ by race, or by immigrant or international student statuses, or how these financial conditions impact inequalities in student persistence and graduation.

University of Iowa Context

This chapter examines student experiences of campus and their impact on academic outcomes at one Midwestern flagship state institution (the University of Iowa). The University of Iowa campus has limited racial/ethnic diversity and substantial inequalities in student outcomes. The University of Iowa’s entering cohort in Fall 2012 was 73% White, 11% historically underrepresented racial minorities (African American or Black, Hispanic or Latino(a), and Alaskan Native or American Indian), 4% Asian American, and 7% international students (University of Iowa Office of Assessment). This cohort had a 53% overall graduation rate within four years; however, this masks substantial differences in graduation rates across groups: White (56%); Asian American (50%); Hispanic (47%); multiracial (45%); international students (43%); African American (41%); Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander (33%); and American Indian (11%). Unfortunately, all three public universities in Iowa have similar racial disparities in graduation rates (Ryan, 2016).

The University of Iowa is also not unusual in terms of experiencing racially divisive and unwelcoming incidents over the past several years. For example, in December 2014, a Ku Klux Klan figure was displayed on campus by an art professor (Hardy & Charis-Carlson, 2016). Although the artist intended for the figure to focus attention on racial violence, many experienced the figure as symbolic violence and threatening. The following year, anti-Asian, anti-international student sentiment at the University of Iowa gained attention, culminating in several news agencies covering the increase in hurtful, culturally insensitive, and hate speech targeting Asian and international students being posted through Yik Yak, an app that allows users to anonymously share their opinions (Baccam, 2015). Most recently, as students arrived on campus for the start of the 2017–18 school year, racist graffiti was found in two residence halls (Gruber-Miller, 2017) which unfortunately was the third such incident of racist vandalism at campus residence halls (Charis-Carlson, 2016; Miller, 2016).

Against the backdrop of these events, we developed the following research questions to guide this study:

  1. 1.

    What are the patterns of racial, immigrant, and international student experiences of campus climate, academic experiences, and financial conditions at the University of Iowa?

  2. 2.

    Are experiences of campus climate, academic experiences, and financial conditions associated with academic outcomes (i.e., credit completion and degree completion)?

  3. 3.

    Do these experiences have stronger associations for historically underrepresented racial groups and/or immigrant and/or international students?

Data and Measures

This chapter uses data from the 2013 undergraduate SERU survey at the University of Iowa (UI). The Office of Assessment administered the SERU survey to all degree-seeking undergraduate students at the University who were age 18 or over. Participation in the survey was voluntary. Various campus offices encouraged students to participate via email. The University further incentivized participation by entering all students completing the survey in weekly prize drawings. Almost 6000 students completed the survey for an overall response rate of 30% (5914 survey respondents compared to 19,848 enrolled undergraduates).

The SERU survey is designed so that each student in the administration, during a particular spring, is exposed to a set of questions that are identical, called the “core,” and then are randomly assigned to a module containing supplemental questions. The “core” contains questions focused on time use, academic engagement, student perception of campus climate, and an evaluation of the student’s program of study. Supplemental modules contain questions relating to civic engagement, global knowledge, and student life with an optional module comprised of questions designed by the administering institution. Each administering institution supplements the SERU responses with a set of pre-collegiate outcomes and current enrollment factors such as ethnicity, residency status, level in school. In 2013, due to a software malfunction, approximately half of the students assigned to one of the four additional modules did not receive it, which resulted in approximately 11–13% of total respondents per additional model instead of expected 25%. Due to small samples for subgroups in these modules, the analysis for this chapter is restricted to survey items contained in the core module.

We link the SERU survey data to UI administrative data to track academic outcomes over time and obtain more detailed information about academic preparation and achievement, year in school, etc.

Student Demographics and Controls

The racial/ethnic identity and international student status of respondents were drawn from administrative records. Student application forms at the University of Iowa ask two questions: “Are you Hispanic/Latino(a)? and “What race do you consider yourself to be (indicate one or more)?” with six response categories: American Indian or Alaskan Native, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino(a), Asian American, White/Caucasian, and not-reported race/ethnicity. Following the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) definitions, the University’s administrative data grouped into an “international student” category. Due to small sample sizes and to capture historically marginalized student experiences, we created an underrepresented racial minority category, which includes American Indian or Alaskan Native, Black or African American, and Hispanic/Latino. We conducted analyses for White, Asian, underrepresented racial minority, and international students.

We created a measure of immigrant status from the question asking respondents when they came to the United States to live. Responses were: “I was born in the U.S.” in “2000 or earlier” and then a series of year-specific choices from 2001 to 2015 or later. We classified respondents indicating they were not born in the U.S. and who were also not international students as immigrants.

We obtained the gender identity (male or female) of the respondent administrative records. For parent’s level of education we use the SERU questions in which respondents reported the highest level of education attained by their parents. Options were “neither parent attended any college,” “one or both parents attended some college,” “one parent has a four-year degree,” “both parents have a four year degree,” “one parent has a graduate or professional degree,” and “both parents have a graduate or professional degree.” We used these response categories to create four broader categories: neither parent attended college; one or both parent attended some college; at least one parent has a four-year degree; and at least one parent has a graduate or professional degree. We obtained class level from administrative records. Categories were “freshman,” “sophomore,” “junior,” and “senior.”

Student Experiences

We assess “perceptions of belonging” from the survey item asking respondents their level of agreement with the statement: “I feel that I belong at this University.” Response categories included strongly agree, agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree coded 0 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree.

We obtained three measures of perceived respect from a question set asking respondents their level of agreement with the statement stem: “Students of my _______ are respected on this campus,” in which the variant questions included for student race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, political beliefs, immigration background, and with a physical, psychological, or learning disability like mine. These measures capture racial respect, gender respect, and socioeconomic status respect. Response categories were: strongly agree, agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree. We coded these categories on a 0–5 scale (0 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree).

We measure academic involvement by creating an aggregate measure averaging responses to a set of items asking how frequently students have engaged in 12 different academic-related activities (Chatman, 2009). These activities included indicators of student initiative (for example, “talked with the instructor outside of class about issues and concepts derived from the course”) and engagement (for example, “made a class presentation”). Response categories were never, rarely, occasionally, somewhat often, often, and very often. We coded these on a 0–5 scale (0 = never, 5 = very often). We measured academic disengagement by creating an aggregate measure averaging responses to a set of items asking how frequently students have engaged in four academic-related behaviors (Chatman, 2009). Response categories were never, rarely, occasionally, somewhat often, often, and very often. We coded these on a 0–5 scale (0 = never, 5 = very often).

We assessed financial strain by creating an aggregate measure averaging responses to a set of items asking how frequently students have done the following in the past year: skipped meals to save money; cut down on personal/recreational spending; worried about their personal debt; or worried about their family’s debt and financial circumstances. Response categories were never, rarely, occasionally, somewhat often, often, and very often. They were coded on a 0–5 scale (0 = never, 5 = very often). We assessed academic-related savings by creating an aggregate measure averaging responses to a set of items asking whether students had done any of the following in the past year to meet college expenses: bought fewer books, bought cheaper used books, read books on reserve; took a leave of absence or a quarter/semester off; took more courses per term; took action to graduate more quickly; or did not retake a class to improve grade. We coded responses as 0 = no and 1 = yes. We created a measure of how much paid work students engage in while attending school from the question asking how many hours they spend in a typical week on paid employment. We coded the answers were coded on a 0–7 scale (0, 1–5, 6–10, 11–15, 16–20, 21–25, 26–30, more than 30).

Outcomes

Degree completion (i.e., graduation) indicates whether a student has graduated between the Spring 2013 semester and Summer 2017. We used administrative data four years post-survey administration to allow students who were freshman enough time to graduate. We measured credit accumulation as the number of UI credit hours that a student had completed by Spring 2015 compared to the number of UI credit hours completed at the time of the survey administration (Spring 2013). Here, we used two years of post-survey administrative data as the cut-off so that the most students remained in the sample. This period also provides a proximate time span to observe the potential impact of the campus experiences reported in the survey.

Table 15.1 includes descriptive statistics for all measures used in the analyses.

Table 15.1 Descriptive statistics
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Methods/Analytic Strategy

We obtain the analytic sample by dropping observations that are missing the two academic outcomes (1563 dropped observations), students who graduated before the survey administration (123 dropped observations), students classified as “other” in reference to their year in school (63 dropped observations), students missing race or other personal characteristics used in the models (774 dropped observations), and students missing student experience measures (194 dropped observations). The final analytic sample included 3197 students.

To answer the first research question, we estimated an analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine if there are significant differences in means between White, international, Asian, and underrepresented minority students on the academic outcomes and each of the key predictors (i.e., academic experiences, campus climate experiences, or financial conditions). We used the Tukey–Kramer method (which accounts for the higher likelihood of making a Type I error with multiple comparisons in assessing statistical differences in means) to estimate pairwise comparisons.

To answer the second research question, we use multivariate models to predict the two academic outcomes. These models leverage the longitudinal nature of the data allowing us to predict the academic outcomes using experiences and conditions that occurred prior to the outcome. The models include race and international student status, gender, parental education, and year in school (Model 1). The model predicting credit hours in 2015 also includes a measure of credits earned at the time of survey administration so that the model is predicting the “accumulation” of credits over the following two years after the survey administration. Due to the dichotomous nature of the graduation outcome, we employed a logistic regression to estimate this outcome and transformed the results from log odds to odds ratios for ease of interpretation. We added each set of experiences (academic, climate, and financial) to the models separately (Model 2) and together (Model 3).

We assess the final research question by including interactions between race and international student status and the student experience predictors. We estimate separate models to test the full set of interactions for each student experience predictor (Models 4–10).

Results

Table 15.1 displays the characteristics of the analytic sample used in the analysis. The sample is 79% White, 8% underrepresented minority, 5% Asian, and 7% international students, and 4% of the non-international students are immigrants to the US. The sample has a higher percentage of female students (66%), and 64% of the sample has a parent with a college or graduate degree.

Differences in Student Experiences

There are significant differences in student experiences across all of the academic, climate, and financial measures (see Table 15.2; Figs. 15.1 and 15.2). In terms of campus climate experiences, White students have the greatest perceptions of belonging and respect for students of their racial group, socioeconomic status, and gender. Underrepresented minority students, by contrast, have the lowest perceptions of respect for students of their racial group, socioeconomic status, and gender. Immigrant students also have significantly lower perceptions of respect for students of their racial group and gender compared to non-immigrant students. International students have the lowest perceptions of belonging on campus, followed by underrepresented minority and immigrant students.

Table 15.2 Student academic outcomes and experiences by race, international student status, and immigrant status
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Fig. 15.1
figure 1

Perceptions of respect

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Fig. 15.2
figure 2

Perceptions of belonging, academic involvement, and financial strain

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In terms of academic experiences, international students and immigrant students report the highest levels of academic involvement whereas underrepresented minority students report the highest levels of academic disengagement. And, in terms of financial conditions of students, Asian, underrepresented minority, and immigrant students report significantly higher rates of financial strain while international students report substantially lower rates. Asian and White students report working the greatest number of hours in paid employment while in school while international students report working much fewer hours comparatively.

Predicting Student Academic Outcomes

Before examining whether academic, climate, and financial experiences predict academic outcomes, it is useful to examine the descriptive group differences in these outcomes. Table 15.2 shows that there are significant group differences in graduation rates but not in credit accumulation from 2013 to 2015. Specifically, underrepresented minority students have significantly lower graduation rates (84%) compared to White (92%) and international students (95%). Immigrant students also have significantly lower graduation rates (83%) compared to non-immigrant students (92%).

Table 15.3 shows the multivariate results predicting credit hour accumulation over a two-year period. As expected, credit hours in 2013 is a strong positive predictor of credit hours in 2015. The first column displays results from Model 1, which includes student characteristics: international student status, race, immigrant student status, gender, parental education, and year in school. In Model 1, underrepresented minority students accumulated approximately two fewer credits from 2013 to 2015 compared to students who identify as White. Students whose parents had higher levels of education also accumulated more credits. Models 2A–2C include experiences of campus climate (2A), academic experiences (2B), and financial conditions (2C). For campus climate experiences the only significant association found is for perceptions of belonging, which is positively associated with accumulation of credit hours. For academic experiences, academic involvement is positively associated with achieving a full credit more in a two-year period (β = 0.963). Interestingly, two of the three financial condition measures are negatively associated with credit accumulation (financial strain and working more hours for paid employment); however, one of the measures (academic financial savings) is positively associated with credit accumulation. This finding is interesting because it suggests that students who engage in one or more of the academic financial savings behaviors that help to reduce the cost of attending college accumulate more credits in the same period of time compared to students who do not engage in money-saving behaviors to reduce the cost of college attendance. Model 3, which includes all three types of student experiences, shows that all of these findings are robust to the inclusion of different aspects of student experiences of campus.

Table 15.3 Credit hour accumulation (Spring 2013–Spring 2015)
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Table 15.4 shows the multivariate logistic results predicting graduation (degree completion) within four years of survey administration. Underrepresented minority students had lower odds of graduating within four years compared to students who identify as White. Students whose parents had higher levels of education also had higher odds of graduating.

Table 15.4 Graduation/Degree completion (by Summer 2017)
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Turning to the associations between student experiences and graduation, students’ perceptions of belonging is associated with a 20% higher odds of graduating, although this association is reduced to non-significance in Model 3. Surprisingly, perceiving that students of one’s gender is respected on campus is negatively associated with graduation. To investigate this unexpected finding, separate models were estimated for male and female students. Interestingly, the association between perceiving respect for students of one’s gender and graduation is only found in the female-specific model (eβ= 0.593 and p < 0.01).

Both of the academic experiences are significantly associated with graduating: academic involvement is associated with increased odds of graduating while academic disengagement is associated with decreased odds of graduating. Similar to the accumulation of credits model results, financial strain and hours in paid work are negatively associated with graduation whereas academic-related financial savings behaviors are associated with higher odds of graduating. With the one exception noted above, all of these associations are robust to the inclusion of all three types of student experiences.

Differences in Student Experience Associations

Table 15.5 shows the results looking at whether the associations between student experiences and credit accumulation differ for underrepresented minority, international, Asian, or immigrant students. There are significant differences in the impact of academic experiences and financial conditions. While greater academic involvement is associated with accumulating one additional credit hour in a two-year period (β = 1.175), for underrepresented minority students, greater academic involvement is negatively associated with credit accumulation (β = −2.393). When we turn to the financial conditions of students and their impact on credit accumulation, we also see widely varying associations for different groups. Financial strain has a negative association overall (β = −0.539) which is much stronger for international students (β = −1.805), but is actually positive for immigrant students (β = 2.475). While engaging in academic behaviors that make attending college less costly is positively associated with credit accumulation overall (β = 8.455), for international students engaging in these behaviors reduces the accumulation of credits (β = −10.262).

Table 15.5 Credit hour accumulation (Spring 2013–Spring 2015) interaction model results
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Table 15.6 looks at the associations between student experiences and graduation across groups. There are only a few significant differences. First, while perceptions of respect for students of one’s own socioeconomic status is not a significant predictor of graduation overall, it significantly reduces the odds of graduation for Asian students (eβ = 1.793). The only other significant difference in association is for financial strain. As in the results found for credit accumulation, financial strain is negatively associated with graduation overall (eβ = 0.832), however, it has a positive association for immigrant students (eβ = 1.804).

Table 15.6 Graduation/degree completion (by summer 2017) interaction model results
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Discussion and Conclusion

We found significant differences in student experiences of campus climate, academic experiences, and financial conditions. Underrepresented minority and immigrant students had much lower perceptions of belonging on campus and underrepresented minority students also had much lower rates of agreement that students of their racial group are respected on campus. Given that perceptions of belonging predict credit accumulation and graduation, these inequalities in campus experiences have direct influence on inequalities in student academic outcomes. Having more inclusive and welcoming campus climates, therefore, is one strategy for universities interested in reducing racial differences in academic outcomes such as credit accumulation and graduation.

In line with previous scholarship, we found that academic involvement is positively associated with credit accumulation and graduation overall. However, when looking at whether this kind of academic experience is the same for all students, we found that engaging in these kinds of activities is actually negative for underrepresented minority students. To explore this non-intuitive finding, we disaggregated the academic involvement measure, which includes 12 academic-related behaviors, and estimated the same predictive model (Model 3) with each individual academic behavior and the interactions between that behavior and underrepresented minority, international student status, Asian, and immigrant student status separately. We found that there are three academic-related behaviors that have negative associations for underrepresented minority students: talking with an instructor outside of class about issues and concepts derived from a course; interacting with faculty during lecture class sessions, and asking an insightful question in class. Unfortunately, these findings do not have an obvious explanation, nor do they shed much light on the unexpected negative association between academic involvement and credit accumulation for underrepresented minority students. Future research should explore this in more detail.

One of the contributions of this chapter is examining not only whether the financial conditions of students impact their academic outcomes, but exploring whether these conditions affect different types of students differently. Two findings merit discussion in this regard. First, we found that while international students had much lower rates of financial strain, engagement in behaviors to make college less costly, and worked fewer hours for pay compared to White, underrepresented racial minority, or Asian students, the negative impact of experiencing financial strain and engaging in behaviors to make college less costly are stronger for international students. When international students experience financial hardships, they are particularly at risk for being unable to complete credit hours at the same rate as other students.

The second finding related to group differences in the impact of financial conditions is for immigrant students. Unlike international students, immigrant students report higher rates of financial strain. Experiencing financial strain is positively associated with immigrant students’ credit accumulation and graduation. Given this unexpected and counter-intuitive finding, we did supplemental analyses examining whether each of the individual components of the financial strain measure differed significantly for immigrant students. We estimated models that include all the student characteristics and experiences (Model 3) and then additionally include each of the individual components of financial strain and the interactions between that financial condition and underrepresented racial minority, international student status, Asian, and immigrant student status separately. We find that two of the four components have significantly different associations for immigrant students. Both (1) worrying about personal debt and (2) worrying about family debt and financial circumstances are negatively associated with accumulating credits and graduation overall; however, both of these financial conditions have positive associations for immigrant students. This finding suggests that while experiencing financial worries, both personal and familial, negatively impact most students’ abilities to concentrate on academic success, such financial worries may serve as a positive motivating factor for immigrant students.

Immigrant students are significantly more likely to report worrying about their family’s debt and financial circumstances compared to non-immigrant students. In fact, over 50% of immigrant students report “often” or “very often” worrying about their family’s debt and financial circumstances. While very little research exists on this topic, one related research study examined Latino college students’ concerns about financial constraints and found that they were the most likely to think their financial circumstances will negatively impact their academic success in college. What we find here suggests the opposite, that these financial concerns actually increase the likelihood of success for immigrant students. Other work specifically focused on immigrant students has documented that immigrant students are more likely to report having competing family responsibilities and also to report feeling depressed, stressed, or upset (Soria & Stebleton, 2013). However, we found that worry specifically about their own or their family’s debt or financial circumstances positively predict academic success for immigrant students.

The analyses conducted in this chapter have several limitations. First, the sample reflects moderate to severe survivor bias which is reflected in the graduation rate (92% overall) which is much higher than the average 4 or 5-year graduation rates noted at the outset. This reflects the fact that students who completed the survey in Spring 2013 are more selective than those who have already discontinued attending the university. Also, almost 50% of the survey sample in 2013 were juniors and seniors and their graduation rates are 95%, compared to the students who were a freshman at the time of the survey administration whose graduation rate was 85%. These higher rates reflect the fact that the vast majority of college dropout occurs in the first year of school. Second, caution should be used when thinking about the generalizability of these results given that the analysis was conducted on a sample from only one campus. Caution should also be exercised when interpreting the results due to relatively small samples of underrepresented minority (n = 270), international students (n = 235), Asian students (n = 171), and immigrant students (n = 121). Future work should examine how robust these findings are to other campuses, and to larger sample sizes.