Community College Education Administration Commons^™

Two Roads Diverged: Understanding The Decision-Making Process And Experiences Of First-Generation And Low-Income Students Who Chose Different Paths In Pursuit Of A Baccalaureate Degree, John A. Drew

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Despite gains in expanding the student pipeline to postsecondary education, first-generation and low-income (FGLI) students complete college at disproportionately lower rates and have limited access to the resources necessary to make informed decisions about higher education. Research has shown that FGLI students are less likely to apply to college after completing high school, and when they do, they often enroll in institutions that are less selective than they were academically qualified to attend. Moreover, although access to higher education has expanded, the increased concentration of students at community colleges has not led to increases in earned credentials.

This study used …

A Phenomenological Exploration Of The Non-Academic Factors That Cuban Female Non-Native English Speakers Perceived To Have Been Principal Influences On Their Successful Attainment Of A Baccalaureate Degree In The U.S., Nelson Magana

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cubans arrive in the U.S. with more formal education than other Latino immigrants, and they arrive to communities with long standing networks of support. Though their baccalaureate degree attainment is better than their non-Cuban Latina counterparts, Cuban women still lag behind White, non-Latina women. The qualitative study aims to explore the principal influences and non-academic factors that 15 adult Cuban non-native English-speaking women in South Florida attribute to the successful attainment of their baccalaureate degree.

There are many differences among the various immigrant Latino communities in the U.S., and Cuban women are largely absent from the research. Nearly 75% of …

Students' Perceived Value Of The Community College Experience: A Mixed Methods Study, Robin A. Duncan

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore students’ perceived value of their community college experience and its relationship to other factors often related to student persistence in college, namely satisfaction, academic quality, service quality, and engagement. The research was guided by three focused questions: How do students describe and define perceived value of community college; what components emerge from exploratory factor analysis of items designed to measure perceived value; and how, if at all, is a student’s perception of the value of a community college experience different from related measures such as satisfaction, engagement, or quality? Data were collected …