The purpose of this study is to critically explore low-income women's experience as they negotiate post secondary education in community colleges. Three research questions explore the context through which low-income women have entered the college experience, what that experience is like for them, and how the community college experience has impacted their consciousness and view of their futures. This study has significance because poverty is a critical social issue for women, post secondary education is a route out of poverty yet social welfare policy does not support access to education, community colleges have traditionally provided access to education but supports for women have been diminished, and poor women's voices and their own definitions of educational access and success are missing from the public and academic debate of these issues. Past qualitative studies that focus on poor women's experience of college are smaller parts of quantitative studies. Other existing in depth studies have focused on obstacles, persistence, and support systems, or have been studies of special transitional programs formed specifically for welfare eligible women. There is little knowledge of women's experience and sense of self from their perspective as students who are also in poverty. This study uses the research technique of in depth unstructured interviews with eight welfare eligible women student parents in Oregon's Parents as Scholars Program. Six themes emerge from the narrative interviews with the participants that that have implications for educational practice and add to and expand the small body of qualitative work that has been done on the college experiences of low-income women students. / Graduation date: 2012

Every college age student should have the opportunity to attend college and earn a degree, but the fiscal realities for lower income students prevent the majority from attending and the vast majority from completing college, thus perpetuating an intergenerational trend of limited postsecondary education and a likelihood of marginal income and status. Past research studies have shown that, among lower income students, those who receive higher levels of grant funding to offset college expenses are more likely to persist toward completing their educations than those who do not receive the same level of grant funding and thus are forced to rely upon other means, such as student loans or employment, to pay for college. The majority of this research was conducted prior to the recession that began in December 2007 (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2008), which has been more severe and longer lasting than any economic contraction since the Great Depression (Dwyer & Lothian, 2012); more current research is needed to determine whether the educational retention behaviors of lower income students in the current challenging economic climate are positively impacted by grant funding. In this study I used quantitative methods to analyze a specific state policy change to determine whether a significant change in the grant funding provided to lower income students resulted in increased retention rates for these students. This study examines school years from 2006-2010, thus encompassing the recent financial crisis and affording an opportunity to explore the persistence behaviors of lower income students during the greatest financial crisis of modern times. The ultimate purpose of the study is to provide conclusions from the research to postsecondary policy makers in the hopes of informing policy and supporting continuing funding of need-based financial aid for lower income students.