Examining the Retention of Nontraditional Latino(a) Students in a Career-Based Learning Community

Abstract

Learning communities are designed to increase student persistence and academic achievement and are a retention strategy to increase these outcomes for 1st-year college students. This article examines the educational outcomes for a learning community specifically designed for nontraditional Latina(o) students enrolled in a grant-funded program to become bilingual teachers. The learning community model was a grant objective. Student evaluations, retention, and graduation rates were analyzed to examine the effectiveness of the learning community.