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Female undergraduate students have drastically increased in higher education over the last three decades. The increase in the number of students has come during unprecedented cost increases associated with attending a four-year higher education institution. The increases can be related to tuition but are also associated with mandatory fees (fees all students must pay regardless of status). These fees are associated with programs and services that enhance the collegiate experience (academic tutoring, health services, and Game Day activities). Conversely, little is known concerning how holistic experiences (prior experiences) can shape payment methods. Through a quantitative survey analysis that collected female participants’ self-reported data on payment methods across four states, we employed a regression analysis to predict their payment methods. Our findings suggest the (a) demographic characteristics, (b) university knowledge, (c) knowledge and attitudes toward mandatory fees, and (d) several academic capital subsets that shape women’s payment methods.

Guided by sense of belonging and counterspaces, this critical ethnographic study investigates the people, places, and spaces collegians that are Latinx and undocu/DACAmented use to persist toward graduation amidst an ongoing anti-im/migrant sociopolitical climate. Findings reveal that (a) connections built with peers who share racial backgrounds and have liminal legal statuses, (b) supportive and affirming faculty, (c) access to culturally-based student organizations and academic programs, and (d) campus departments and programs catered to the holistic support of undocu/DACAmented collegians are salient for these students’ sense of belonging in college, though belongingness is not fully attainable in the United States as a result of racist nativism. Recommendations for research and practice are offered for higher education institutional agents at all levels.

While undocu/DACAmented students face many challenges in higher education, their lives demonstrate a tremendous amount of motivation, resilience, commitment, and perseverance. The literature on undocumented students has indicated that these students bring a vast array of assets to college -- assets that can be used to improve the campus and the experiences of undocu/DACAmented individuals. However, undocu/DACAmented student assets are often undervalued. In this critical qualitative study of testimonios with 15 undocu/DACAmented Latinx collegians, we examine how institutions utilize, underutilize, or exploit these students' assets to ask at what point acknowledging and recognizing students' assets turns into exploiting them. Our findings revealed these collegians hold myriad assets and institutions responded to those assets by sometimes acknowledging and rewarding them, failing to acknowledge these assets, or exploiting them. Recommendations for equitable and ethical recognition and collaboration with undocu/DACAmented collegians are provided.

In this study, researchers conducted an examination of the consequences, both positive and in need of improvement, of a large college of education's student support process (SSP). The SSP was put in place by college of education leaders in order to better support the teacher education students enrolled throughout its teacher education program, through both their coursework and student teaching experiences. Researchers used multiple methods to examine the SSP's purposes and objectives, the SSP's strengths and challenges, and the typical students being served via the SSP (e.g. in terms of demographics, also to understand impacts). Researchers collected and analyzed institutional data as well as data derived via the self-reported perspectives of faculty and staff engaged throughout all stages of the SSP. Findings are offered, as are implications for internal as well as external audiences including but not limited to college of education faculty, staff, and leaders, potentially within and well beyond the United States (US).

This narrative inquiry study examined how Black and non-Black Mexican undocumented collegians use joy as resistance to navigate their lives while in college. A lack of published empirical research explores how these collegians experience and embrace joy despite navigating barriers, such as anti-im/migrant exclusionary policies and racist nativist sociopolitical and campus climates. Our findings revealed their joyful experiences with biological and chosen family and communal and artistic joy. Recommendations for research and practice are provided for higher education actors at all levels.