The effect of institutional and student characteristics on services offered to students in continuing education departments

Using results from The 2004 National Study on Continuing Education institutional survey, this study investigated the effect of student demographic characteristics and institutional characteristics on academic advising, academic support services, alternate delivery services, employment services, financial aid services, online services, personal support services, and remedial instructional services.; The study focused on 278 surveyed institutions and divided them into three institutional characteristics categories: universities, baccalaureate colleges, and community colleges. Five student body demographic groups were formed: minority and low income; minority and not low income; low income; non-traditional; and younger, Caucasian, and not low income. The study analyzed services on the basis of the three types of institutions and five types of student bodies.; The findings suggest that continuing education divisions offer more services to students on the basis of institutional characteristics than student body demographics. Academic advising, alternate delivery services, financial aid services, online services, remedial services, and the total of all services differed by institutional characteristics. Advising services and online services differed by student body demographics when the student body demographic groups were the first independent variable entered into the two-way analysis of variance. Employment services differed by student body demographics when the institutional categories were the first independent variable entered into the two-way analysis of variance. Universities averaged the most services, followed by baccalaureate colleges and community colleges.