A Latent Growth Analysis of Undergraduate Degree Production

A theoretical framework based on prestige-maximization is used to identify four time-varying inputs in the production of undergraduate degrees at non-profit colleges and universities. The longitudinal relationship between these inputs (academic expenditures, research funding, faculty quality, and student quality) and the output (undergraduate degrees per FTE) was estimated at the institutional level between 1997 and 2007 with latent growth modeling. Separate models were estimated for institutions producing social science degrees (n=1,145) and physical science degrees (n=1,114). Collinearity diagnostics mandated the exclusion of academic expenditures; thus, interpretations of results were limited. The remaining three inputs were significantly related (p