Community college student success metrics have become increasingly synonymous with the completion rate and other key academic performance measures over the past quarter century. These measures, however, do not fully capture students' subjective interpretations of success, including their individual goals and aspirations. This article aims to…

Background/Context: Sociologists of education have studied how community colleges' institutional authorities and organizational barriers stratify students' postsecondary aspirations. Notions of how students might diverge in their pursuits are less understood. This study builds on imagined futures and postsecondary aspiration literature to…

Background/Context: Prior research has stressed the importance of timing in the college choice process, especially as it relates to receiving early information and making plans and decisions. Little has been done, however, in terms of empirically demonstrating how soon students make their decisions about college and the ways in which the timing of…

Background: While literature is abundant on factors associated with community college student outcomes, limited attention has been paid to what shapes educational expectations after students enroll, and how these expectations are linked to educational progress. To address this gap, Weidman's (1989) undergraduate socialization theory is…

Background/Context: A sense of belonging in school is a complex construct that relies heavily on students' perceptions of the educational environment, especially their relationships with other students. Some research suggests that a sense of belonging in school is important to all students. However, we argue that the nature and meaning of…

Background/Context: Although much research has dealt with the factors that influence educational expectations, few studies have addressed recent high school graduates who attend community colleges as their first postsecondary institutions. As the costs associated with attending a four-year institution keep rising, community colleges increasingly…

Background/Context: Although progress has been made since members of the Conference on College Composition and Communication passed the Students' Right to Their Own Language resolution (1974), there still remains a demand to examine youth perceptions of language. Such examinations can help teachers and researchers improve curricular choices, honor…

The growing policy interest in community colleges as gateways to the baccalaureate degree naturally raises the question of how equitably transfer opportunities are distributed by student background and what factors may explain background differences that might be found. We analyze two nationally representative data sets to examine how the…