This ethnographic study examines the educational experiences of 10 women who are both social service recipients and higher education students. Study participants view higher education in a variety of ways that include both instrumental and transformational purposes. By situating participants' experiences in the larger economic and social context…

Today's welfare system does not encourage postsecondary education, focusing instead on immediate employment. The loss of postsecondary education as a route out of poverty may be detrimental to some women. College graduation is associated with lower rates of recidivism and post-welfare poverty than attendance without graduation or no attendance.…

The Women and Poverty Public Education Initiative (WPPEI), established by the University of Wisconsin Women's Studies Consortium Outreach Office in 1994, developed a collaborative outreach scholarship model that paired women from the poverty community with women's studies faculty from universities in eight Wisconsin communities to study the…

Today, a college education is increasingly viewed as the gateway to the American Dream--a necessary prerequisite for social mobility. Yet recent policy reforms in the United States effectively steer former welfare recipients away from an education that could further their career prospects, forcing them directly into the workforce where they often…

Increasingly, less educated Americans are struggling with self-sufficiency. Low-end jobs are diminishing, and adults who left high school with education adequate to support themselves now find their marketable skills limited. Recent welfare reforms restrict assistance, leaving struggling workers with dwindling aid. Changing family structures…

This review of research is part of a larger project which identified exemplary community college programs that employ innovative curriculum and instructional practices in order to help low-skilled adults attain a family sustainable wage. The project goal was to identify best practices that are replicable at other community colleges. These programs…