In spite of the many support structures that attract nontraditional-aged adult students to community colleges, research suggests that participation in community college programs still presents barriers to the success of nontraditional-aged adult students that may ultimately affect retention. A study that seeks descriptions of those barriers and supports from nontraditional-aged adults' perspectives as they work to complete a semester adds valuable information about how to effectively help the growing number of nontraditional-aged adult students in community colleges. Research Questions How do nontraditional-aged adult students in community college describe the barriers and supports to the completion of an associate's degree and persistence in community college? Subquestions 1. How do nontraditional-aged adult students describe their experiences with faculty in the classroom, their experiences with the registration process, and their interaction with the college administration for purposes of information, guidance, and other college-level issues? 2. How do nontraditional-aged adult students describe the experiences they have outside of college that affect their college experiences? Method To answer these questions, a multi-case study approach was conducted. Eleven nontraditional-aged adult students on campus served as focal students for the case study, which took place in the bounds of 1 semester. More than 800 nontraditional-aged adult students answered surveys about their experiences, 11 students participated in two face-to-face interviews during the semester, and participated in 4 telephone interviews. Eighteen nontraditional-aged adult student volunteers participated in focus-group sessions. Seventeen nontraditional-aged adult students posted their experiences on a private message board. Additional interviews and focus groups were conducted with faculty and staff to augment data. Significance Nontraditional-aged adult students are a unique and growing set of students in the community college sector. The characteristics of adults as learners are distinct enough to suggest the importance of a study such as the one conducted here. This study was a qualitative, multiple-case study that sought to provide an in-depth, detailed picture of the barriers and supports for nontraditional-aged adult students from their multiple perspectives and realities. This adds to the knowledge about barriers to success for a subgroup of community college students as well as identifies how nontraditional-aged adult students describe supports that can lead to success in community colleges. The study found that nontraditional-aged adult students at the college in the study faced a plethora of obstacles that were institutional, situational, and dispositional. The institutional issues could be further subdivided between classroom issues and service access issues. I found that the college had multiple exemplary programs in place to support all of the students and in some cases, those exemplary programs successfully helped nontraditional-aged adults students to persist and be satisfied. However, the nontraditional-aged adult students at the college were diverse and therefore the programs in place did not serve and satisfy all of the nontraditional-aged adult students. Nontraditional-aged adult students, those who were satisfied and those who were dissatisfied with the college, shared many of the same obstacles. However, the adults were still different enough from each other to call for the institution to use various methods to help the adult students to overcome the obstacles they had in common.

Published annually since 1985, the Handbook series provides a compendium of thorough and integrative literature reviews on a diverse array of topics of interest to the higher education scholarly and policy communities. Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of research findings on a selected topic, critiques the research literature in terms of its conceptual and methodological rigor and sets forth an agenda for future research intended to advance knowledge on the chosen topic. The Handbook focuses on a comprehensive set of central areas of study in higher education that encompasses the salient dimensions of scholarly and policy inquiries undertaken in the international higher education community. Each annual volume contains chapters on current important issues pertaining to college students and faculty, organization and administration, curriculum and instruction, policy, diversity issues, economics and finance, history and philosophy, community colleges, advances in research methodology and other key aspects of higher education administration. The series is fortunate to have attracted annual contributions from distinguished scholars throughout the world.

Focusing on non-traditional students in higher education institutions, this new book from renowned scholar John Levin examines the extent to which community college students receive justice both within their institution and as an outcome of their education.

How appropriate for today and for the future are the policies and practices of higher education that largely assume a norm of traditional-age students with minimal on-campus, or no, work commitments?Despite the fact that work is a fundamental part of life for nearly half of all undergraduate students – with a substantial number of “traditional” dependent undergraduates in employment, and working independent undergraduates averaging 34.5 hours per week – little attention has been given to how working influences the integration and engagement experiences of students who work, especially those who work full-time, or how the benefits and costs of working differ between traditional age-students and adult students.The high, and increasing, prevalence and intensity of working among both dependent and independent students raises a number of important questions for public policymakers, college administrators, faculty, academic advisors, student services and financial aid staff, and institutional and educational researchers, including: Why do so many college students work so many hours? What are the characteristics of undergraduates who work? What are the implications of working for students’ educational experiences and outcomes? And, how can public and institutional policymakers promote the educational success of undergraduate students who work? This book offers the most complete and comprehensive conceptualization of the “working college student” available. It provides a multi-faceted picture of the characteristics, experiences, and challenges of working college students and a more complete understanding of the heterogeneity underlying the label “undergraduates who work” and the implications of working for undergraduate students’ educational experiences and outcomes. The volume stresses the importance of recognizing the value and contribution of adult learners to higher education, and takes issue with the appropriateness of the term “non-traditional” itself, both because of the prevalence of this group, and because it allows higher education institutions to avoid considering changes that will meet the needs of this population, including changes in course offerings, course scheduling, financial aid, and pedagogy.

This book employs a socio-cultural approach to study the organizational dynamics and experiences of self-formation that shape community college life. The authors use case studies to analyze both the symbolic dimension and practices that enable the production of educational experiences in seven community colleges across the U.S. Levin and Montero-Hernandez explain the construction of organizational identity and student development as a result of the connection between institutional forces and individual agency. This work emphasizes the forms and conditions of interaction among college personnel, students, and external groups that were enacted to respond to the demands and opportunities in both participants local and larger contexts. The authors acknowledge both the collective and individual efforts of community college personnel to create caring community colleges that support nontraditional students.