Wielding degrees of influence within educational organizations, university leaders are critical in determining how institutions enact their espoused missions and support severely marginalized campus communities. How do universities address and improve educational outcomes for the most severely underrepresented communities? This article presents…

Millions of college students, across the nation and in California, benefit from financial aid that reduces the amount students and families must pay for tuition and fees, supplies, and living expenses like food, housing, and transportation while enrolled. In California, concerns about college costs and affordability have in recent years expanded…

Under a contract with the California Student Aid Commission, The Century Foundation (TCF) has been tasked with "identifying options for improving affordability at California colleges and universities," and suggesting ways to streamline and consolidate existing programs "to reduce current students' cost of attendance, thus reducing…

Using an emerging model of family engagement in higher education and the concept of parental role construction as a framework, this study presents the "Ley de la Vida" (Law of Life) process to explore how Latina/o immigrant parents experience their children's transition to higher education. Centered on the experiences of 15 parents of…

Many higher education institutions are not presenting accessible instructional course content in their online classes. This is an issue of equitable access to education, as it creates a barrier to academic success for students with disabling conditions (SWDs). The purpose of this mixed methods study was to understand faculty's knowledge,…

Talcott Parsons is often identified as the "master" of mid-twentieth-century social theory. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, his writings were hardly any longer discussed, but mostly neglected. "The American University" is Parsons's last monograph published during his lifetime. On the basis of extensive archival research, this…

California voters ranked college affordability as the second most important education policy issue in the 2019 PACE/USC Rossier poll, a concern reflected in Governor Gavin Newsom's first budget proposal and in a number of bills currently progressing through the state legislature. Though desire for making college affordable is high among the…

All universities and colleges in the United States were deeply and immediately affected by the sudden appearance of COVID-19. Two-year public community colleges suffered the same fate as their university neighbors: the immediate needs were to close up operations, shift instruction to online and distance modalities and keep students engaged and…

In a year that has upended higher education and created great uncertainty, it is more important than ever for students to understand which colleges payoff and how quickly. In April of 2020, Third Way released a report outlining the use of a Price-to-Earnings Premium (PEP) to evaluate the value of attending college and help students assess and…

Although spirituality has gained more attention from postsecondary higher education leaders as a conceptual channel for meaning making, little is understood about student perspectives and definitions of spirituality. These studies explored student narratives on spirituality and leadership at a nonfaith based public institution in Southern…

Capitalizing on the findings in our preceding study of a purely theoretical model, this paper aims to empirically examine whether and to what extent public universities' institutional missions have transformed in recent years in the States of California and New York by quantifying a degree of functional diversification of universities. We focus on…

This dissertation includes three chapters focusing on policies directly related to improving college access and success. The first chapter focuses on lifetime eligibility of federal and state financial aid policies. The Pell Grant plays a critical role in helping students across the US to afford undergraduate education. In spite of its importance…

In this qualitative study, 74 self-reported incidents from student affairs professionals at different levels of experience were analyzed to support the claim that the 10 ACPA/NASPA competency areas increase in complexity as expertise develops. Participants at all experience levels were observed using (a) personal and ethical foundations, (b)…

An increase in public expressions of xenophobic and racist nativist sentiments followed the election of the 45th president of the United States, and higher education institutions across the country issued statements proclaiming their support for students impacted by changes to federal immigration policy. Guided by García's (2017) organizational…

College plays a critical role in providing opportunities for economic mobility, yet degree attainment by race is inequitable. Currently, more than half of young white adults hold at least a two-year college degree, compared to 37 percent of Black young adults. Less than a third of Hispanic, American Indian, and Hawaiian or Pacific Islander young…