The purpose of this paper is to consider a different point of view as to why historically underrepresented minority students ultimately succeed in school, but do so at a cost (Goward, 2020). The authors argue that considering John Henryism, i.e., high-effort coping as a response to environmental stressors, as a source of motivation for…

Student persistence remains an important focus for higher education professionals. National conferences and other professional development opportunities regularly highlight information on resources, supports, and programmatic efforts that are most effective at helping college students persist. Retention is a key performance indicator for…

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how family, tribal, and on-campus cultural-specific support can lead to higher educational and cultural outcomes for Native American college students through the lens of transculturation. To address the lack of quantitative empirical research on what it means to self-identify as Native American and thrive…

Student persistence to graduation remains a critical measure of institutional success. Degree attainment is not only essential to the personal achievement of students arriving on campus each fall but has become a high-stakes measure for performance-based funding. It is telling, that even now, the pursuit of a college degree is characterized as…

The National Center for Educational Statistics (US Department of Education, 2016) reports enrollment in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) has increased 36 percent since 1990, with the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPED) reporting 355,058 students enrolled in HBCUs compared to 260,381 in 1990. The growth of…

In this article, the authors consider whether the noncognitive skills typically associated with college and career success are equally valued by university officials and employers. Using a taxonomy that represents the range of noncognitive skills that appear in both higher education and employment scholarship, they present research funded by the…

At California State University Northridge (CSUN), Stevie Ruiz's students reflect the multiracial communities of Los Angeles County. The students are children of immigrants, working class, first-generation college students, and queer people of color. Students share a wealth of knowledge that is shaped by race, gender, sexual, and class inequality…

The alarming low completion rates in postsecondary education for Latinx students should be a national concern. Teachers can have a strong and direct impact on the academic success of students. College students spend a large portion of their time interacting with faculty in class or during office hours. To assist Latinx students in getting to the…

Wilson Kwamogi Okello and David Pérez II highlight Christian's story from their study of 100 Latino undergraduate men at 20 selective universities. Christian's experiences as an apparently successful student exemplify the double-edged nature of Latino men's challenges in higher education. Okello and Pérez apply the concept of public and hidden…

This article offers the concept of critical professional praxis as a framework for naming and addressing difference-neutral practices in education (an approach that does not consider the effects of power and privilege associated with social differences in teachers' beliefs, ideas, and actions). Critical professional praxis is using both formal and…

"Open access" is a core mission component of the community college. Through this mission, public two-year colleges provide postsecondary opportunities to nearly all individuals desiring further education. However, access is not necessarily synonymous with success. Many students, including black males, have concerning levels of success, or the lack…

Over the past several decades, college-student retention has arguably been the most intensely studied issue in academe. Though the body of retention literature grows ever larger, no one model adequately explains the process by which college students make a decision to leave an institution or to persist to graduation. And while no magic bullet…

In this article, the author examines the challenges of highly mobile students and what educators can do to retain and support them. The findings and recommendations presented here are based on two complementary research projects conducted with homeless students transitioning from high school to college. The author focuses on the residential…

Many colleges and universities in the United States offer summer programs for their incoming students. While programs are structured and administered in a variety of ways and target various student populations, the most common type of summer bridge program aims to serve historically underrepresented students and students of low socioeconomic…