| College-choice studies have long been conducted to help colleges improve their recruitment strategies (Chapman, 1981 Hossler & Gallagher, 1987 Jackson, 1982 Litten, 1982). The dominant college-choice models and studies have, however, focused solely on traditional aged students seeking to enroll in four-year colleges/universities upon high school completion (Bers & Smith, 1987 Cabrera & La Nasa, 2000). Neglected from these established models has been the other student populations enrolled in other sectors of higher education in the U.S., specifically the community colleges.Critical Race Theory (CRT) provided the conceptual framework for this qualitative study that explored the college-choice phenomenon for a group of documented Chinese immigrant students at one urban public community college. This study examined the participants' experiences to determine factors that contributed to their college-choice decision making.The stories shared by a sample of 16 participants (ages 19 to 39) revealed four overarching factors that impacted their college-choice decision making: (1) their experiences as immigrants in the U.S. (2) their experiences as members of the working class in the U.S. (3) their educational experiences prior to their immigration to the U.S. (4) their educational experiences while in the U.S., which raised concerns about equity in access to college knowledge. Participants negotiated all these factors to decide that they would enroll at a community college. The findings from this study contributed to the literature of college-choice from the perspective... |
