Currently across the nation, colleges must cut budgets, instilling the need for student programs to prove their worth. Simultaneously, the population of first generation, academically under-prepared college students is growing. This quasi-experimental, action-research study evaluated a five-week, summer program called the Pathways Summer Bridge (PSB) program at Arizona State University's (ASU) West campus. The PSB program was based on the six components of Tinto's longitudinal model of institutional departure. The ultimate goal of the PSB program was to improve the re-enrollment and retention rates of academically under-prepared freshmen who were predominately from first generation and under-represented populations and usually both.

A mixed methods approach was used to examine the effectiveness of this program. Three sets of data were collected. Program goal surveys were completed by 46 PSB participants. A Factors Influencing the Retention and Re-enrollment (FIRR) survey was completed by 26 PSB participants (treatment) and 70 of their freshmen peers who had not participated in PSB (control). And finally, 13 of the 56 PSB participants were randomly selected and interviewed.

Statistically significant results were found in three factors of the program goal data. The PSB participants were found to feel more familiar with campus resources, were more confident with college expectations and felt the PSB program helped them to develop a sense of community. On the FIRR survey data, the PSB participants noted a significant increase in confidence in terms of what to expect freshmen year and felt comfortable on campus, more so than their peers in the control group. Four themes emerged from the interview data of what PSB participants perceived as the greatest effects of the PSB program: friendship, successful college student characteristics, security and belonging to ASU and an increase in self-confidence/self-growth. Overall, the PSB program helped students: make connections with other similar students cultivating their own support community, feel more confident about starting college, develop academic success skills, and learn about campus resources.