Community College Students: Exploring College Purpose After the Pandemic

• In Event: Bridging the Gap: Transfer Students, Advising Styles, and Academic Support Structures

Abstract

Recent reports indicate that the well documented drop in community college enrollment attributed to the pandemic may reflect deeper disjunctures that have led community college students to an existential questioning of the purpose and value of a college degree. This qualitative, exploratory study aimed to engage 30 first-year community college students in exploring their own sense of college purpose in the context of a critical examination of neoliberal community college policies such as the push for continuous full-time enrollment. While such policies are often rationalized as remedies for racial inequity, this study revealed that they were implicated in the academic challenges faced by this cohort of students and harmed students’ passion and purpose in pursuing a college education.

Author

• Emily Schnee, Kingsborough Community College - CUNY