For many open-enrolled higher education institutions, including community colleges, enrollment is dropping each semester creating significant financial challenges. While much research literature focuses on four-year colleges, little is known about the students who seek to enroll at community colleges. What is known is often evaluated using college…

Objective/Research Question: This research explores how community college students, who are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and aspire to vertical transfer in STEM make choices about majors and transfer destinations. The question is important to advancing equity in STEM, which continues to…

Explore the Programs & Profiles guide to discover what Minnesota has to offer. With two-year and four-year public and private institutions as well as accredited cosmetology and specialized trade schools, the profiles found in the beginning of the guide get right to the facts on tuition, fees, class sizes and required exams. The program grid,…

This chapter addresses how Latinx students and their families understand the process of going to and choosing to attend a community college.

This paper offers a qualitative analysis of decisions of 64 community-college students in seeking a transfer in Hong Kong. In weighing a number of educational options and then offers, with a similar level of desirability in some cases, in order to achieve their transfers, advantaged-class and disadvantaged-class respondents struggled with…

African American women utilize the community college environments as an avenue to attain an education and eventually pursue career and educational goals while remaining in their own communities. However, not much is known about the unique perceptions and experiences of African American women impacting their enrollment and persistence at rural…

Digital engagement as a tool for communication offers a variety of formats for reaching and potentially attracting prospective college students. While printed materials were once the primary means for colleges to communicate with and subsequently influence student's choice, the internet has created a virtual world for digitally engaging with…

Forty percent of all Texas public college students start at a community college and 75 percent earn at least some community college credits. Yet there is very little evidence about how students make transfer decisions and whether the policies meant to avoid credit loss, like the core curriculum, actually improve transfer success and degree…

This dissertation examined the motivation and source of support for first-generation Latina community college students who aspire to transfer to a four-year institution. The study is informed by Yosso's Community Cultural Wealth model, to explore how participants navigate their school environment and the vertical transfer process through an…

Geography of opportunity research has identified places with few or no college options: so-called "education deserts." This study extends this geography of opportunity research, exploring how geographical constraints affect students' choices, particularly the choice to attend a for-profit college. Using the Education Longitudinal Study…

This guide presents what Minnesota has to offer for higher education. With two-year and four-year public and private institutions as well as accredited cosmetology and specialized trade schools, the profiles found in the beginning of the guide get right to the facts on tuition, fees, class sizes and required exams. The program grid, found in the…

The concern for increasing future student enrollment in a central Texas community college was examined to determine specific strategies to proactively address this problem of professional practice during the ongoing 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic and pandemic recurrence. The purpose of this research study was to consider the factors, as identified by…

Studies have shown that, aside from student differences, the college that a student attends plays a role in their likelihood of remaining in college and ultimately earning a degree. Increasing attention has been given to "undermatching," which occurs when a student enrolls in a college for which they are overqualified, based on their…

Community colleges, known for their open access and inclusion, have seen consistent enrollment declines for several years. At Outward Flats Community College, the research setting in this study, student enrollment has consistently declined and a widening admission yield gap between students of color and white students occurred. The researcher…

This chapter presents results from a study exploring the experiences of rural high school graduates and the influences on their reasons for attending postsecondary education. In particular, the results presented here are a compilation of several rural students who intentionally chose to attend a local community college.