While research literature suggests that socioeconomic factors play a role in predicting educational attainment, very little research has been done to examine these relationships using data from Puerto Rico. A logistic regression approach was adopted to investigate the extent to which family and school socioeconomic factors predict retention from first to second year of college, after controlling for previous academic preparation, utilizing existing data from over 6,000 student records in one public institution in Puerto Rico. As expected, previous academic preparation variables were statistically significant in the prediction of retention, along with attendance at a public high school, while family socioeconomic factors did not appear to play a significant role. However, there were some notable differences between significant factors for men and women. Implications include the need for further research on the influence of socioeconomic factors on educational attainment in Puerto Rico.
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