Factors Influencing American Indian and Alaska Native Postsecondary Persistence: AI/AN Millennium Falcon Persistence Model

The purpose of this review of literature is to identify variables (Hart 1998), relevant to AI/AN postsecondary persistence, and to examine the relationship between findings and postsecondary persistence theories at 2 and 4-year institutions. An exhaustive review with selective citation was used to locate relevant documents. Due to the limited amount of articles found for this review, I included both qualitative and quantitative articles. The factors were organized into four emerging themes including; family support, institutional support, tribal community support and academic performance. Due to the lack of research conducted using measures important to AI/AN persistence, the understanding of factors influencing AI/AN student postsecondary persistence is still somewhat limited.