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…

Growth of Latino students in postsecondary education merits an examination of their resources/challenges. A community cultural wealth model provided a framework to examine unacknowledged student resources and challenges. A mixed method approach found that first- and second-generation college students report equal numbers of sources of…

This study examines narratives of English learners who have either dropped out or considered dropping out as a result of their experience in high school. This research seeks to determine at which point students left or considered leaving school, which often goes undetected in traditional quantitative data collection methods. The common themes that…

A number of national studies point to a trend in which highly selective and elite private and public universities are becoming less accessible to lower-income students. At the same time there have been surprisingly few studies of the actual characteristics and academic experiences of low-income students or comparisons of their undergraduate…

A survey of 1,433 northern California high school seniors examined career awareness and effects of part-time work. Most students agreed that career awareness is important, but only half understood their interests or had sufficient knowledge about occupations. Minority groups expressed greater career exploration needs than Whites. Working students…

This report describes the 2-year cooperative education demonstration project conducted in three colleges of the San Mateo Junior College District (California). The project, involving all academic disciplines, offers co-op students three plans: (1) alternate class attendance and a full-time job in conjunction with another student on a semester…

A survey of 7% of all students attending classes in the Los Angeles Community College District during Fall, 1978, was conducted to determine educational and career goals and interests, levels of college preparation, commuting patterns, employment while attending college, personal or parental income, attitudes toward tuition, marital status,…