American colleges play a substantial role in promoting learning-equity for all students who enter their institutions. However, most programs in higher education institutions are fashioned by cultural diversity, but very few institutional programs offer integrated services to help returning nontraditional students persist in program completion.…

Community colleges are an important, yet understudied, tier of the higher education system in the United States. Community colleges serve students from all socio-economic backgrounds. As such, community college students face challenges to their educations not seen in those attending more traditional schools. This dissertation recognizes these…

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of student leader employees in relation to retention through the lens of development via engagement at a small, non-profit private university in Southern California. Methodology: This study used a phenomenological approach to understand the…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of part-time, on-campus employment on Chinese international undergraduate students' integration and development on American campuses. In doing so, I focused on exploring how Chinese undergraduate students learn English, make friends with the domestic students, shape identities in the…

This three-study dissertation investigated how socioeconomic factors and policies are associated with educational outcomes for undocumented youth and, in one of the papers, to what extent education and employment outcomes intersect. Guided by the specific questions of each study, the three papers take different theoretical and methodological…

Schools currently face problems in preparing students for their post-secondary pursuits. The current job market remains unsaturated and almost half of all students that attend college end up dropping out. Almost a third of the students that do graduate end up working in a field unrelated to their course of study and college costs and debt are on…

Undocumented students face challenges when they make the decision to pursue higher education because their immigration status disqualifies them from receiving certain types of financial aid. As a result, undocumented students often struggle with the cost of higher education tuition. Most of research on the experiences of undocumented students…

This article explored the academic experiences of nontraditional students enrolled in an undergraduate degree program. For the purposes of this study students were deemed to be nontraditional if they met one of the following characteristics: had delayed enrollment into postsecondary education; attended college part-time; worked full time; were…

While the numbers of African American and Latinx students have increased in higher education over the last several decades, African Americans and Latinx students experience college different from their peers. A specific area where African American and Latinx students experience college in distinct ways is around their co-curricular involvement and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between when in the fall semester a first year experience (FYE) course was taken to fall-to-spring retention of first time students at a large, Chicago suburban community college. Since most of the students' attrition has been in the first year in college, FYE programs have been designed to…

The purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) to investigate if the leadership skills learned during their time as student employees in recreation are being used after they have left the UHM within their current work setting, and (2) contribute to the growing knowledge of the direct benefits of campus recreation on campus recreation student…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among external time obligations of work and care giving by part-time students, their participation within structured group learning experiences, and student engagement. The Structured Group Learning Experiences (SGLEs) explored within this study include community college programming…

The purpose of this study was to use the National Survey of Student Engagement's (NSSE) measures of student engagement to determine whether there were different levels of student self-reported engagement scores when comparing freshman and senior level students who attend work colleges (WC) with public, four-year, small, highly residential…

Does working during the school year result in lowered perceptions of school climate and connectedness for middle school students? According to outcomes from a Rocky Mountain Region School District's (RMRSD) school climate survey, 20% of their middle school student population works during the school year. Existing literature on youth employment…

The current qualitative study explored the transition to college of youth aging out of foster care and their adaptation in the first year of college. The aim of this study was to determine the nature and quality of former foster youths' college transition experience and factors influencing their adaptation in the first year. Participants included…