LEAVING COMMUNITY COLLEGE: DO EXISTING MODELS OF COLLEGE
DROPOUT APPLY TO COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS?
Regina Deil-Amen
Introduction
Why do students ‘dropout’ or ‘leave’ college? Researchers have been studying this question
for decades, but little of this inquiry has focused on community college students. Addressing this
question is vital to a realistic understanding of the role that community colleges play in patterns of
reproduction and mobility in our society.
In the absence of systematic research evidence, we have turned to beliefs, stereotypes, and
even publicly accepted myths to form our opinions about the educational effectiveness of
community colleges (Pascarella 1997).
One such myth is the notion that academic researchers know much about today’s
community colleges or understand the reasons why students who begin at these institutions “drop-
out,” or leave before completing a degree or credential. Although nearly half of first-time beginning
postsecondary students start in a community college (NCES 2001), surprisingly little attention has
been given to this segment of our educational system.
The models and frameworks that do exist to aid us in our understanding have been
generated primarily from research on four-year college students. These theories stress the
importance of a normative fit between students’ social and intellectual orientations and the internal
social and cultural life of the college. A lack of congruence between the individual student and the
college community leads to a breakdown in commitment and eventual departure. To assume that a
mere application of these four-year college models to the community college context is an adequate
approach to understanding these students is a false supposition. Very little attention has been
devoted to the development and testing of a theory of attrition among community college students
that is produced through the type of actual research in community colleges necessary for a thorough
familiarity with and understanding of these institutions and their students. Far from the clearly
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Convention