ABSTRACT As higher education becomes increasingly globalized, institutions face growing pressure to serve diverse student populations, including those from refugee, ethnic minority, and first-generation backgrounds. Among these, Somali Bantu students—a historically marginalized ethnic group from Somalia—encounter layered barriers in higher education, shaped by institutional invisibility and racialized refugee status. Despite being part of broader discourses on refugee student experiences, their unique positionality remains largely overlooked. Drawing on data from a larger qualitative study, this study offers a focused phenomenological analysis of seven Somali Bantu students attending predominantly white institutions in the U.S. Guided by Anzaldúa’s Borderlands Theory and using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), it explores how they navigate intersecting identities—ethnic, racial, religious, refugee, and first-generation—within academic environments. Findings reveal a pervasive theme of ethnic invisibility, unfolding across three dimensions: the homogenization of Somali identity, institutional unawareness of Somali Bantu presence, and the overshadowing of ethnic identity by religious identity. These layers of invisibility produced deep feelings of isolation and marginalization, impacting their sense of belonging and persistence. By centering their lived realities, this study contributes to decolonial, diasporic, and refugee-centered discourses in higher education, calling for more nuanced institutional responses that affirm African refugee identities and foster academic inclusion.

ABSTRACT While efforts to increase college access and completion have historically focused on recent high school graduates, state policymakers have begun to realize that, in order to expand their competitive workforce, they also need to increase postsecondary attainment among adults. In this study, we use data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and a differences-in-differences approach to estimate the impact of adult-targeted state grant aid on enrollment and completion outcomes across 10 different states. We find that effects vary across states, with positive effects on enrollment and completion primarily concentrated at eligible two-year institutions. We also find some statistically significant negative effects which suggest that the grant aid programs may have induced individuals to trade-off between institution types, or competing policies may have drawn away adults who otherwise would have enrolled into the workforce. Our results have implications for future policy efforts aimed at increasing the postsecondary attainment of adults.

ABSTRACT In the context of Donald Trump’s return to office and the escalating geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and China, this study provides timely insights into how macro-level political and economic forces intersect with micro-level agency in shaping the decisions and lived experiences of Chinese international students. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of geopolitical economy and student self-formation, this article critically examines how global power dynamics and structural constraints influence international students’ educational trajectories. Based on the semi-structured interviews with 38 Chinese students at a U.S. public research university, the study finds that their decisions to study abroad are shaped by concerns about personal safety, financial constraints, and restrictions on international mobility. However, these students are not merely passive recipients of these external challenges; they actively navigate these political and economic uncertainties by leveraging transnational social networks and digital resources, exploring alternative educational and career pathways, and adapting their aspirations in response to shifting global landscapes. By highlighting the entanglement of geopolitics, race, and higher education, this study calls for a geopolitical turn in higher education research to better theorize how international students are positioned not only through race and class, but also through nation-state rivalry and global restructuring.

ABSTRACT While the federal work-study program is one of the longest-standing forms of federal financial aid for higher education, it remains understudied due to limited data availability and policy details, particularly because the program is administered at the institutional level. Students also self-select into the program, and a major challenge in prior research has been identifying an exogenous source of variation in participation. This study addresses these gaps by leveraging administrative records for 26,871 students, including demographics, financial aid, academic records, and on-campus employment and payroll data, along with information on financial aid packaging. Using the expected family contribution cutoff for federal work-study eligibility, I employ a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to estimate program effects on first-year GPA, second-year retention, and average weekly work hours and earnings from on-campus employment. Findings indicate that students offered federal work-study differ demographically from those who decline their offers. Differences in on-campus employment patterns (e.g., job type, hours, and earnings) are substantial between students with and without federal work-study offers. Although program participants exhibit the most intensive work patterns (more jobs and longer hours) among on-campus employees, participation shows no negative effects on academic outcomes. No heterogeneous program effects are observed across student subgroups.

ABSTRACT Research experiences for undergraduate science students are regarded as a high-impact educational practice. Students who participate in laboratory research get to work closely with a faculty mentor, participate in authentic scientific inquiry, develop their research skills, and build identities as scientists. Prior studies have established the value of undergraduate research experiences, but questions remain about how learning occurs in the laboratory. In this longitudinal case study, we closely examine the development of eight undergraduate Biology and Chemistry students as they participate in research over multiple years. Using a sociocultural lens of legitimate peripheral participation, we trace the development of student autonomy as they become fuller participants in their research laboratories. We found that our participants progressed through a common sequence of developmental phases, in which students became increasingly independent and took on a greater set of decision-making responsibilities. This was a time-intensive process, occurring across multiple semesters in the same laboratory. We identified multiple factors that affected students’ progression through those phases, including the structure of the research laboratory and the impact of switching to a new lab. Our study affirms the educational significance of research experiences while adding depth and detail to the developmental processes associated with them.

ABSTRACT Since the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against race-conscious admissions, anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts have grown, creating challenges for leaders committed to advancing racial equity on their campuses. Using racialized change work as a lens, we analyze faculty cluster hiring as a potential strategy toward racial equity that could hold up in the current political climate. This study uses data from four historically white research universities, focusing on how leaders used faculty cluster hiring as a strategy to promote racial equity. Our findings reveal that cluster hire leaders leveraged racialized expertise as hiring capital, creating a “strategic side door” to diversify faculty demographics while sidestepping risks associated with affirmative-action-like approaches. Cluster hire leaders also leveraged faculty lines to challenge — or attempt to challenge — practices that sustain a racist status quo. However, this approach could also create additional racialized labor expectations on newly hired Faculty of Color. We offer recommendations for leaders to consider when designing and implementing cluster hiring initiatives to support racial equity effectively.

ABSTRACT The United States is experiencing an influx of executive orders (EOs) as well as proposed and enacted laws restricting how institutions and educators attend to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We investigated the influence of the contentious sociopolitical climate created by anti-DEI laws in the context of higher education biology. Accurate and inclusive approaches of addressing the biological and social dimensions of diverse human experiences is becoming ever more imperative, particularly because of the way inaccurate claims about biology are being wielded to justify prejudicial EOs and legislation. Through the lens of faculty agency, we examined how biology instructors’ agentic actions (behavior aimed at achieving one’s goals) and agentic perspectives (viewing the self as capable of achieving those goals) are being influenced by anti-DEI laws. Participants expressed minimally changing their instructional content, although they became more aware of possible negative consequences of teaching potentially controversial topics. This led to participants making subtle changes to avoid scrutiny regarding their teaching. We call for more coalition building across administrators, faculty, and students for ongoing and proactive resistance against the anti-DEI movement.

ABSTRACT This study adopts a collaborative autoethnographic approach to explore how three Chinese doctoral students (re)constructed their researcher identities through scholarly publications during the pre-dissertation stage. Data collection primarily relies on prompt-based self-narrative journals, supplemented by visual artifacts (journey plots, social media posts, and e-mails). Drawing on the theory of doctoral student socialization, we reflect on our publishing as a socialization practice and the impact of supervision on researcher identity construction in global neoliberalism. Our findings reveal that, despite varied academic trajectories, our researcher identities have been positively shaped as independent scholars by the time we reach candidacy. We propose a researcher identity model to highlight that supervision in distinct academic cultures (United States vs. East Asia) and individual agency interact in shaping the development of researcher identities regarding publishing in neoliberal contexts. While supervision for publishing shapes our perceptions of being a researcher, agency plays a key role in socializing us into academic communities, where we undergo an identity transition from novice to professional researchers. This study offers pedagogical insights into doctoral publishing and supervision in cross-border education.

ABSTRACT This sequential exploratory mixed methods study explores how mental health experiences shape career development among students at a Midwestern community college. We conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups with 27 students with mental health challenges, followed by analysis of survey data from 1,607 students to examine differences between those with and without mental health conditions. Integrating qualitative and quantitative findings, three themes emerged. First, mental health challenges served as a motivator for career choices centering empathy, community, and service, reflected in students’ mental health journeys and significantly higher self-reported critical self-reflection and social awareness compared with peers without mental health conditions. Second, meaningful learning experiences affirmed career paths yet left holistic needs unmet, evidenced by students’ accounts of affirming coursework alongside significantly lower holistic academic support. Third, students continuously negotiated career fulfillment and mental health sustainability, reflected in expressed tensions between ambition and well-being and significantly lower career self-efficacy and community and civic engagement. Our findings reframe mental health experiences not solely as a barrier but as a meaningful asset shaping career purpose and decision-making. We call for a reimagined campus environment where academic guidance, career development, and mental health are intentionally integrated to support students’ holistic well-being and sustainable success.

ABSTRACT Postsecondary policymaking has entered an era of entrenched partisanship. Yet scholars have rarely sought to explain partisan differences in postsecondary policy support. This paper proposes that differences in information consumption among lawmakers are associated with and help explain political differences in support for higher education policies. Extending research on policy knowledge use, we challenge C.P. Snow’s “Two Cultures” framework by showing that policymakers draw on multiple, competing sources of authority—often outside traditional expert channels. Drawing on a national survey of state legislators, we use exploratory structural equation modeling to predict lawmaker support for policies related to campus carry, undocumented students, campus sexual assault, and political viewpoint diversity. We find that lawmakers differ in their reliance on sources of information related to legislative expertise, technical expertise, and religious authority. Moreover, the results suggest that the polarization of higher education policy among lawmakers reflects partisan differences in the kinds of information they consume.