Beyond Public Assistance: Factors Affecting Completion of Community College Students in the Career Transitions Program

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the characteristics of students who successfully completed “Career Transitions,” a program to help adult learners obtain certification, degrees, and employment. The population for this study is low-income, single parents between the ages of 18 and 55 that were enrolled in a support program for TANF recipients. In this study I investigated background characteristics of participants’ attitudes toward program supports, the experiences of TANF program completers, and whether students who successfully completed the program saw academic training as useful.

The researcher used a mixed method design to answer the three research questions:

1. What were the experiences of TANF Program completers?

2. How did TANF recipients perceive the usefulness of program academic training?

3. What background characteristics influenced participation and program completion of Career Transitions participants?

A two phase, sequential explanatory design was used (Creswell, 1999, 2003). Phase I used a quantitative methodology and Phase II used a qualitative methodology to further explain and elaborate on the findings in Phase I (Tashakkori, &Teddlie, 1998; Creswell, 1999, 2003).

In Phase I, descriptive statistics were used to analyze information obtained from a self-report survey completed by 35 successful participants. The survey was used to obtain information concerning background characteristics, barriers and support services used by the students who successfully completed the program. Phase II obtained the indepth perspective of program completers related to their experiences and training.

A summary of the survey results in Phase I showed a plurality of the participants were white and female. They were single parent TANF recipients, who were usually first generation college students. The median age was 34.3 years and 30.3 percent had completed a GED. Exactly 68.8 percent of the participants delayed college after high school and over half of the participants indicated that financial aid was used to fulfill family obligations. Most of the participants found academic training as useful. This is an indication that among successful students, academic training is very important in completing the program. Additionally, two other major findings were that older respondents tend to rate academic training as less useful than younger participants who had been in the program longer viewed academic training as more useful than those who were in the program for less time which is supported by the literature.

Phase II supported the findings in Phase I. All five participants interviewed were first generation college students and all participants stated academic training was very useful to their success.