Drawing on a case study of 60 low-income single mothers in California, I present a grounded account of the barriers and supports single mothers encounter in their pursuit of postsecondary education (PSE) and detail what the women themselves attributed to their success. I highlight the role both significant others (peers, family, friends) and institutional structures (the county welfare department and a community college district) played in their access and persistence within a community college district. In doing so, I provide a rich portrait of single mothers’ pursuits of postsecondary education to inform the empirical research gaps in the literature on the effects of welfare reform on the pursuit of PSE. I find that not only does the support of significant others play an important role in single mothers’ access of PSE, but that referrals to PSE from the county welfare department were as equally important—a finding that counters the dominant discussion in scholarly work on the barriers welfare departments pose to welfare recipients’ pursuit of PSE. Supportive significant others remained an important factor in the women’s abilities to persist in their postsecondary pursuits, but the women also cited student support programs designed to address the needs of low-income students as facilitating their persistence. The implications for the impact of welfare department practices, community college support structures and close networks of significant others on low-income single mothers’ access and persistence in a community college district are discussed.

central assumption in many theories of the self in social psychology is that individuals seek to verify their self-views through interaction. Individuals seek to confirm self-views and will work to maintain those relationships and situations in which they experience self-verification (Burke 1991;

This study identifies and examines the key practices of California community college programs that have demonstrated success in improving (or that have shown significant potential to improve) the achievement of underrepresented groups whose educational attainment often lags behind the attainment of relatively well-off White students. Unlike many examinations that focus only on the transfer mission, this study includes other vital areas of the community college, including workforce preparation and developmental education. Study findings reveal that the practices of these programs had four common characteristics: cohesion-the ability of program personnel to operate as a unit in which behaviors and actions mesh or are rationally consistent; cooperation-the degree to which program personnel work together toward common goals and form good working relationships with each other and with students; connection-the ability of program personnel to sustain interdependent relationships with internal and external entities, such as other departments within the college and industry representatives; and consistency-the presence of a distinctive and stable pattern of program behaviors that promote program goals. In addition, study results show the central and critical role played by the faculty in assuring program success.

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