A comparative study of four-year and community college students' subjective experiences of emerging adulthood, belonging needs, and well-being

Abstract

Background: Research on the dimensions of emerging adulthood has disproportionately focused on students from four-year universities. Methods: Using data from the EAMMi2 project (Grahe et al., 2018), we assess whether the dimensions of emerging adulthood (as the age of possibilities, instability, identity explorations, and feeling in-between) vary between four-year university and community college students. We also explore how emerging adults compare on the need to belong and subjective well-being. Results: Four-year university students (N = 1,221) identified more strongly with the negativity/instability and feeling in-between dimensions of emerging adulthood than community college students (N = 300). Community college students, however, were higher on identity exploration, with no differences between the groups in identification with the experimentation/possibilities dimension of emerging adulthood. Four-year students reported higher well-being and higher belonging needs compared to their counterparts at community colleges. Regardless of school type, experimentation/possibilities and feeling in-between predicted higher well-being whereas negativity/instability predicted lower well-being and higher belonging needs. Conclusion: These findings highlight nuance in the experiences of emerging adulthood, as evidenced by both some shared experiences and group-level differences.