Financially Eligible Pell Grant Community College Students’ Perceptions of Institutional Integration

Abstract

There is a wealth of literature on the integration of university students increasing retention and ultimate completion, yet much less is known about the connections or disconnections that exist for community college students. Therefore, I interviewed financially eligible Pell Grant community college students (n ¼ 62) about their connections to their institutions, and I subsequently conducted a thematic analysis of the data. Students' experiences of integration ranged from feeling they created a family to perceiving unfair treatment. Overwhelmingly, students felt connected to their community college. However, some students who were not meeting satisfactory academic progress described a disconnection to their community college. The results indicate a need to reevaluate the satisfactory academic progress criteria and develop an integration model specific for low-income community college students.

Understanding the Career Aspirations of Diverse Community College Students

“…Consistent with previous theoretical and empirical literature (Fort & Murariu, 2018; Lent et al, 2000), students who felt more empowered or more adaptable in the face of barriers might see their goals as accomplishable and feel less discouraged by oppressive systems. This finding is of particular importance for this population of students as they are at high risk for a multitude of these types of barriers (CCSSE, 2012) and often lack access to other types of environmental supports (Ocean, 2017).…”

“…Research has suggested that students are more likely to persist toward their educational and career goals when faced with barriers if they feel efficacious in their ability to overcome those barriers (Hackett & Byars, 1996; McWhirter, Hackett, & Bandalos, 1998; Perrone, Civiletto, Webb, & Fitch, 2004). This population is generally under investigated, and rarely students are surveyed on what they need and what they see as barriers and enablers to their success (Harlow & Bowman, 2016; Ocean, 2017). Given their unequal access to environmental support networks and higher exposure to career and other barriers, it is important to understand students’ efficacy in their ability to cope with these obstacles and persevere academically and vocationally.…”

Academically Eligible and Ineligible Pell Grant Community College Students: A Qualitative Investigation

“…Despite their significant implications for students, the academic criteria have largely been ignored and unquestioned by policy makers and researchers for four decades (Ocean, 2017; Schudde & Scott-Clayton, 2016). They have been accepted as reasonable requirements, yet it is important to examine the “cultural assumptions” embedded in national policy and affecting individuals with less power in a society (Glasser & Bridgman, 1999, p. 115).…”

Nursing Universal Retention and Success (NURS) Model: A Holistic, Discipline-Focused Framework

“…Recent calls for a universal framework to guide future development of college student retention research, theory, and practice applications that encompass features addressing the diversity of students, faculty, and institutions, and adaptable within and between disciplines, program formats, and degree levels have been advocated (Barbera et al., 2017; Lake et al., 2018; Ocean, 2017; Ruud et al., 2018; Tinto, 2017; Xu & Webber, 2018; Zerquera et al., 2018). Furthermore, Tinto (2017) notes that the “prevailing view of student retention has been shaped by theories that view student retention through the lens of institutional action …” (p. 254) and states that “only when institutions understand how student perceptions shape decisions to persist and how their actions influence those perceptions can institutions move to impact those decisions in ways that enhance the likelihood of greater persistence while also addressing the continuing gap in college completion between students of different attributes and backgrounds” (p. 264).…”