The Novel Model To Empirically Investigate The Factors That Influence Graduate GPA : Emergency Loans

Abstract

To date a lot of studies have shown that students are depending on emergency loan to attend graduate schools in the US; and tuition and fees have been increasing steadily worldwide (Idemudia and Ferguson 2015, 2014, 2016). Need increases for international students when national economies shrink, Africa's most developed economy fell into its steepest quarterly contraction in a decade, shrinking at an annualized rate 3.2% in the first quarter (Steinhauser and Ntobela 2019). This indicates South African currency may be devalued against the dollar increasing sum required for an education in the United States. International students that suffer currency devaluation are less likely to consider the United States to study and those here face greater financial stress, which establishes emergency loan need to support academic sustainability. Prior studies have been very helpful; however, to the best of our knowledge there is no study that have use different models to investigate the factors that influence the GPA of students who take emergency loans. To fill the gaps and to make significant contribution to the literature, we conducted our research by collecting datasets from 342 graduate students enrolled in a large public university located in North America. As shown in Figure 5, the three models we used in our study to investigate the factors that have significant and positive effects on GPA relating to students who borrowed emergency loans are generalized regression, linear regression, and Cand R Tree. In addition, Figure 5 show that the best and appropriate model that researchers should use to investigate GPA is generalized regression based on correlation and relative error criteria. Our study shows that Age, gender, marital status, and degree have a positive and significant influence on the GPA of students who borrowed emergency loan. The Data also forecast change in international students applying for graduate schools in the US. Students need greater than family and government resources to successfully complete their studies. Finally, our study has a lot of research and managerial implications for both academia and top managements.