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…

Given the size of the adult student population and the student affairs focus on career development in traditional age students, the purpose of this qualitative study was to explore career development and the vocational self-concept (VSC) in 48 California community college welfare-to-work students. Findings suggest the importance of congruence…

"Hungry and Homeless in College" is a research report that assesses food and housing insecurity among community college students. The report is based on results of a survey of more than 33,000 students at 70 community colleges in 24 states--the broadest survey of its kind--that describes the extent to which students are adversely…

Through a one year-long, qualitative study of welfare-to-work students, this study investigates the developing epistemologies of women enrolled in a community college CalWORKs program. We investigate how poverty as a macro-environment and the community college as a micro-environment influence participants' epistemological development. Findings…

Through a year-long study of welfare-to-work students in the community college CalWORKs program, we investigated what self-authorship development looks like by examining developmental progress, and whether there are patterns in development along the three dimensions of self-authorship. Findings demonstrate progress toward self-authorship, but…

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…

Increasing education among low-income parents is a vital component of policies to improve families' economic status. Educational attainment matters: between 1979 and 2005, wages for those with college and advanced degrees rose by 22 and 28 percent, respectively, while wages for high school graduates remained stagnant and wages for high school…

Using data from the Chicago Longitudinal Study (CLS), an ongoing investigation of a panel of low-income minority children growing up in an inner city, this study investigated whether retention is associated with participation in postsecondary education and public aid receipt. The study sample included 1,367 participants whose data were available…

This report is Iowa's response to the four questions that the United States Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), requires of all states and territories receiving federal funding through the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), Title II, Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA). The overall goal of…

This practice brief profiles three programs, two statewide and one local, that provide work opportunities to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients who are participating in vocational education programs. The authors selected programs that combine vocational education and paid work because this strategy reinforces the emphasis of…

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…