“A Whole Lot of Years I’ve Been In It”: Understanding Community College Adult Learners’ College and Career Decisions
Marco A. Murillo, Davis Vo, Brianna Wright, Cecilia Rios-AguilarObjective:
Over one-third of community college students are aged 25 years or older (e.g., commonly categorized as “adult learners”), and there is a growing body of scholarship that makes sense of their college and career decisions through an individual as well as an institutional lens. Using asset-based frameworks, this research project examines how community college adult learners’ college and career decisions are informed by their unique set of lived experiences and social contexts, accumulated life and labor experiences, and the institutional precarities experienced within the community college system.
Methods:
Applying a qualitative research design, the research team conducted 31 one-on-one interviews with Community College Adult Learners (CCALs) at a community college in a large metropolitan city in Southern California. We implemented a semi-structured interview protocol organized into three parts: (a) introductions, background, education, and labor histories, (b) educational and occupational goals; sources of support and information, and (c) the role of the community college.
Results:
We generated three broad findings as they related to (a) individual precarity in CCALs’ lives, (b) CCALs’ Funds of Knowledge (FK) from labor histories, and (c) institutional precarity in community college experiences for adult learners.
Conclusion:
Practitioners, policymakers, and researchers can support community college adult learners by applying more asset-based frameworks to understand community college adult learners’ experiences, identify and reduce institutional precarity imposed upon adult learners, and provide more comprehensive and holistic support structures that are designed with community college adult learners in mind.