When Do Honors Programs Make the Grade? Conditional Effects on College Satisfaction, Achievement, Retention, and Graduation

Many people within and outside of higher education view honors programs as providing meaningful academic experiences that promote learning and growth for high-achieving students. To date, the research exploring the link between honors participation and college grades and retention has obtained mixed results; some of the seemingly conflicting findings may stem from the presence of methodological limitations, including the difficulty with adequately accounting for selection into honors programs. In addition, virtually no research has explored the conditions under which honors programs are most strongly related to desired outcomes. To provide a rigorous examination of the potential impact of this experience, this study conducted propensity score analyses with a large, multi-institutional, longitudinal sample of undergraduates at 4-year institutions. In the full sample, honors participation predicts greater college GPA and 4-year graduation, while it is unrelated to college satisfaction and retention. However, these results differ notably by institutional selectivity: Honors participation is associated with greater college GPA, retention to the third and fourth years of college, and 4-year graduation at less selective institutions, but it is significantly related only to GPA at more selective institutions. These relationships are also sometimes larger among students from historically underrepresented groups.