This study explores the issue of food insecurity within community colleges in Texas and highlights administrator's responses toward best and most promising practices and challenges in addressing food insecurity. The research was guided by complex adaptive systems theory and cynefin. Food insecurity among college students, especially community…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to describe reasons Federal Pell Grant-eligible community college students in California do not complete the financial aid process after submitting the FAFSA and the resources they need to complete the process. The conceptual framework of this study was Perna's (2006) multi-layered student…

In 2014, California voters passed the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, which was designed to shift the focus from housing and holding criminals towards prevention and support programs for K-12 schools. The California State Legislature established the Learning Communities for School Success Program (LCSSP) grant for the purpose of allocating…

As higher education institutions continue to focus more on equity and allocating resources to serve historically marginalized populations, community colleges in particular have benefited from programs such as the federal Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI) grants to help fund such efforts. One thread…

This research study examined the experiences of nontraditional community college students attending through a tuition-free grant. The intent of the study was to explore the student identified barriers to degree persistence and the student support services nontraditional students recognize as being beneficial towards their academic journey. This…

With tuition increasing at a faster rate than inflation, many college students depend on grants to access education. The largest of these, the federally funded Pell Grant, subsidizes over 30 billion a year worth of tuition for eligible students (Cardona, 2023) yet no longer meets its goal of covering 75% percent of tuition costs. While the…

Many community college students are hungry, and this problem has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The amply available Higher Education Emergency Relief Funds, created by the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act, have helped institutions address campus hunger during and after the pandemic. The study's guiding research…

The purpose of this qualitative hermeneutical phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of nursing program students with grant funding investment in a nursing, allied, and physical health program at a rural community college in Western New York. This rural institution is a member institution of the State University of New York…

The Sullivan County School District, a pseudonym, is a specialized district in NYC catering to newcomers and students at risk for high school dropout. In the 2022-2023 school year, there was a significant increase in enrollment of asylum-seeking students living in shelters. Using an improvement science approach, the aim of this study was to…

Students enroll in community colleges nationwide for various reasons. Some intend to earn a degree and transfer to four year colleges and universities. Some students plan to enter a program that can lead to industry recognized certification. Others enroll to acquire non-credit short-term training to develop workforce required skills. Community…

The COVID-19 pandemic was a unique phenomenon that significantly impacted higher education. Programmatic grants were an important source of funding at community colleges during this unusual time, helping to provide vital resources and support services to institutions and their students. This study is one of the first of its kind to explore the…

The purpose of this explanatory sequential study was to identify factors associated with Pell grant recipients' persistence in a community college setting and to understand the influence of institutional actors on the formation of academic capital. Students completed a survey designed to measure the formation of students' academic capital (St.…

It has been demonstrated that obtaining a postsecondary degree has a variety of financial and social advantages. This quantitative study sought to explore the impact of Pell Grant receipt on retention and completion in a community college. Pell status and rurality, as well as Pell status and race, were examined in further detail. The findings…

I use rich administrative data and several quasi-experiments in Texas to study which students benefit most from college grant aid and why. For "extensive-margin" students, grant aid causes enrollment in college, and therefore has potentially large benefits relative to these students' no-college counterfactual. In contrast,…

Policymakers in small and midsize communities (populations under 200,000) throughout the Rust Belt are searching for ways to reinvent their region to be competitive in the global, knowledge-based economy. Universities can play an increasingly important role in a region's economic development approach if they can effectively engage with their…