The Keystone Education Yields Success (KEYS) program is a welfare-to-work program in Pennsylvania meant to promote financial independence through education. Across the community colleges in the state of Pennsylvania, the KEYS program has often allowed financially disadvantaged students to succeed on par with - and often surpass - their non-KEYS…

Self-compassion has been shown to bolster resilience (Leary, Tate, Adams, Batts Allen, & Hancock, 2007), intrinsic motivation (Neff, Hseih, & Dejitthirat, 2005), and a general sense of well-being (Arimitsu & Hofman, 2015) as students cope with academic and life stressors. While research has begun exploring gender as a factor for…

This qualitative study explored how recipients of means-tested government assistance programs, who are enrolled in community colleges, make decisions about voting, and how structural factors affect their decision to vote. It used a grounded theory approach to generate knowledge about why some recipients of means-tested assistance vote and others…

This study examined the college experiences of bachelor's degree students who receive public assistance benefits, commonly known as welfare, at a four-year college in New York City. Using a narrative inquiry approach, the study sought to illuminate the stories of these students, about whom little previous scholarship is based. The study found that…

This study gave voice to the issues, needs, and concerns of economically disadvantaged single mothers and determined the motivational and institutional factors that helped lead them to their successful completion of a community college degree or certificate program while at the same time coping with the challenges of financially surviving on…