Date of Award

12-14-2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Thomas Barrett

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore community college stigma and how it affects college choice for high school seniors in the state of Illinois. Community colleges nationwide are facing significant challenges such as enrollment decline, funding cutbacks, and declining birth rates. In order to effectively combat these challenges, community college leaders must be fully cognizant of any barriers preventing prospective students from attending the 2-year institutions. Community college stigma has recently gained national attention through various higher education publications but has been rarely researched in previous studies. This mixed methods study distributed surveys to 27 high schools varying by size/geography and was completed by 314 high school seniors to gather their perceptions on community college. Logistic regression analysis and content analysis were utilized to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data respectively. The key finding was that community college stigma significantly affects college choice for high school seniors in Illinois. Also notable was that student perceptions are significantly impacted by peer perceptions, family perceptions, and familiarity with community college. These findings are crucial for community college leaders as the study not only details the issue of community college stigma but also provides recommendations to combat the stigma based on literature review and data analysis from the survey results.

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