Community College Pathways to Graduate Study: Examining Community Cultural Wealth Among Transfer Students of Color

Despite increased attention toward community college transfer (i.e., upward transfer) students in STEM, much remains to be learned about racial equity in post-transfer support. This article uses an asset-based lens to examine the strengths that upward transfer Students of Color bring with them to their receiving universities. Using longitudinal survey data with upward transfer Students of Color in computer science (N = 118), we examine relationships between students' community cultural wealth, knowledge sources about graduate school, and graduate school-related outcomes. Descriptive and regression-based results document the important role resistant capital (i.e., knowledge and skills developed via behaviors that challenge and transform structures of oppression) and aspirational capital (i.e., ability to sustain hopes and future dreams, even within structurally inequitable environments) may play in shaping graduate degree trajectories among upward transfer Students of Color. Other results suggest that - while receiving information about graduate school from faculty significantly predicted PhD interest - such information was not necessarily readily available to transfer Students of Color. We conclude by discussing strategies to catalyze racial equity in pathways from community college to graduate education.