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How Relationships Support and Inform the Transition to Community College

By Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana & Rachel Hare Bork

The prior literature on relationships and the transition to college largely documents either the relationships college students at four-year institutions have on-campus that provide information or relationships they have off-campus that provide support. Using a unique dataset of interviews with 96 first-year community college students, this paper compares the roles of on- and off-campus relationships to understand whether both provide information and support and how the information and support they provide varies.

The authors find that because on-campus relationships are predominately distant, they provide general and impersonal information about policies and procedures and very little support. Off-campus relationships, which are predominately close, provide personal insight and personalized information in addition to support and motivation. The findings demonstrate that community college students’ on- and off-campus relationships are complementary in providing insight into policies and procedures at the college, a sense of belonging on campus, and personal and personalized advice and support for their college goals.

This paper appears in Research in Higher Education.

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June 2020

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“They Never Told Me What to Expect, So I Didn’t Know What to Do”: Defining and Clarifying the Role of a Community College Student

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College 101 Courses for Applied Learning and Student Success

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