摘要：This was a study about the New Century Scholarship (NCS) program offered to Utah high school students at commencement for earning an Associate of Arts (AA) degree by the time they graduate from high school. An Associate of Arts degree is earning 60 college credits toward a specific AA program. The goal of the NCS program was to assist students to bachelor degree completion faster than the traditional time. This program has been in Utah for 20 years, but no research about the program exists. Annually, the cost to taxpayers is $2 million dollars. This study was conducted to determine if the New Century Scholarship (NCS) expedites bachelor degree completion and if so what variables on the career pathway assisted toward quicker completion. The spring of 2012 the Utah Systems of Higher Education (USHE) emailed and mailed surveys to three cohort groups of high school graduates. The response rate was 56%— high enough to generalize results. Descriptive data, statistical analysis, and multiple-regression tests were run on the data. The most significant discovery was the fact that the NCS does expedite bachelor degree completion for both males and females with an average time to completion of 3.57 years. Females did complete their degree earlier than males by half a year. This is less time than the national average of 4.7 years to bachelor degree completion (Complete College America, 2009). This calculation by Complete College America is without an Associate of Arts degree at the time of high school graduation. Another important finding was the rate of completion for NCS recipients with a bachelor degree at 83.2% for the three year cohort group. The variables that were significant in expediting graduation for the NCS scholarship recipients were gender, college major, and college selection. The multiple-regression analysis identified additional variables that expedited bachelor degree completion. These variables were attending school full-time, enrolling in and attending only one college, and the number of Associate of Arts courses accepted toward bachelor degree completion.
