The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of academic advising on changing or maintaining majors in university degrees. It is also a goal of the study to determine which semester students change their majors and whether advising contributes to that change. Through this correlational study, the researchers explored students’ perceptions about the academic advising they received and the relationship of its absence on students’ major change. The participants were 1725 undergraduate students from all year levels. The survey used to collect the data for this study is: the Influences on Choice of Major survey. Based on the findings, it was found that university advisors have a very poor effect on students’ decisions to select their majors as 45.6% of the 1725 participants indicated no influence of advising in their survey answers. Whereas career advancement opportunities, students’ interests, and job opportunities indicate a strong effect on their majors’ selections, as they score the highest means of 3.76, 3.73, and 3.64, respectively. In addition, findings show that students are most likely changing their majors in their second year, and specifically in the second semester. Second year major change scored 36.9% in the second semester and 30.9% in the first semester. More importantly, results indicate that there is a positive significant correlation between college advisors and major change in the second year (p = 0.000). It is to researchers’ understanding based on the findings that when students receive enough academic advising in the first year of study, and this advising continues steadily into the next year, the probability of students changing their majors decreases greatly.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of academic advising on changing or maintaining majors in university degrees. It is also a goal of the study to determine which semester of the course study is most likely or less likely witness the change of major and whether advising contributes to that change. Through this correlational study, the researchers explored students’ perceptions about the academic advising they received and the relationship of its absence on students’ major change. The participants were 1725 undergraduate students from all year levels. One survey is used to collect the data for this study: Influences on Choice of Major Survey. Based on the findings, it is found that university advisors have a very poor effect on students' decisions to select their majors as 45.6% of the 1725 participants indicate NO influence of advising in their survey answers. Whereas career advancement opportunities, students' interests, and job opportunities indicate a strong effect on their majors’ selections as they score the highest means of 3.76, 3.73, 3.64 respectively. In addition, findings show that students are most likely changing their majors in their second year and specifically in the second semester. Second year major change scored 36.9% in the second semester and 30.9% in the first semester. More importantly, results indicate that there is a positive significant correlation between college advisor and change major in the second year (p = 0.000). It is to researchers understanding based on the findings that when students receive enough academic advising in the first year of study and continues steadily to the next year, the possibilities of students changing their majors decreases greatly.

In 2002, the Higher Learning Commission, a regional accrediting agency in the US, placed the community college in this study on academic probation for several criteria and many residents of the community believed that closing doors was the best option for addressing these concerns. This study is designed to ascertain data from external stakeholders of the community college regarding their current perceived value of the community college and suggestions about moving from the present to the future. The main question of the study is: What are external stakeholders’ perceptions of the value of the college to the service area? This qualitative approach is used consisting of interviews, focus groups, surveys, and document review to triangulate stakeholder perspectives. Participants included 176 high school seniors from different counties, four counselors, and four focus groups. The findings from the data are presented in this study are planned to be used by community college officials to incorporate into their strategic plans. They showed that the college needs to consider the value that it brings to the service area including economic benefits, specifically community support; accessibility; and cost of tuition.