US universities continue to recruit and engage international students in ways that result in their othering, exclusion, and compromised well-being. As such, scholarship that amplifies the voices of international students attending US colleges is needed. With the increasing attention and push for inclusion and equity work in higher education, it is imperative to account for international students’ experiences within this dialogue and identify policies and practices that will positively contribute to their well-being and success. Using a transnational lens, we interrogate existing systems and offer recommendations to US institutional personnel to better support international student well-being and success. The purpose of this work is twofold: (1) to illuminate how current structures of US higher education systems thwart international students’ well-being and success, and (2) through our analysis of existing literature, to provide recommendations to best support international student well-being and success.

This chapter – offered by the co-editors – situates the need for “Supporting College Students of Immigrant Origin: New Insights from Research, Policy, and Practice” in both historical and contemporary social, political, and cultural contexts. It also offers a blueprint for how a range of higher education stakeholders can engage with the volume and its individual chapters, which are organized into four distinct parts that chronologically trace students of immigrant origin’s journeys as they relate to higher education.

This study used semi-structured interviews to examine daily stressors and coping resources as experienced by twenty-one racially and/or ethnically diverse, undocumented college students residing in Massachusetts (USA). A legal violence framework and stress process theory were used to analyze the stress and coping experiences of undocumented college students. The findings reveal the presence of financial burdens, fears of deportation, blocked opportunities, and legal status concealment as daily stressors, as well as needed peer and informational supports as coping resources for undocumented students. Furthermore, for undocumented students, fear of deportation and stigma hindered their ability to identify and capitalize on needed peer and institutional support. The authors argue that not recognizing the structural and symbolic ways that immigration laws serve as legitimizing sources for afflicting social, psychological, and material harm places students with precarious legal status at risk for poor mental health. This chapter concludes by offering practice implications to help improve the ability of institutional agents within higher education to meet the needs of undocumented college students.

We utilize asset-based frameworks to examine how college-aspiring multilingual, mainly Latina/o and African American, adolescent students from immigrant backgrounds negotiate college-related pressures and constraints and employ college knowledge when mentoring emerging bilingual immigrant peers. Using interviews, post-mentoring reflections, and critical qualitative inquiry, we highlight the mentors’ agency, constraints, and lack of institutional support as they navigated college and financial-aid processes for themselves and their immigrant peers. We discuss policy implications and the need for future research on peers in supporting tailored college guidance and in empowering students from immigrant, low-income backgrounds given their institutional constraints.

First-generation immigrants and refugees (newcomers hereafter) enroll in college at high rates often motivated by high aspirations and optimistic views about the potential for education to stimulate social mobility in the United States. In their pursuits, however, newcomers face many obstacles to completing their degree. This chapter draws on Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital to explore the postsecondary aspirations and experiences of eighteen current and recently graduated newcomer college students. Through in-depth interviews, participants documented the challenges they faced during their transition to college. This chapter draws attention to the social and structural challenges facing newcomers as they transition to college as well as the resources on which they may draw in their educational pursuits. For instance, while participants demonstrated fortitude and determination to succeed in college, many also expressed concerns that they would not be able to fulfill their career goals and high aspirations. The findings offered in this chapter have practical implications for educators and policymakers seeking to improve the completion rates of newcomer college students.

This chapter considers insights from the argument that extend to a broader set of cases, given the global scope of teacher mobilization. It analyzes the shadow cases of teachers in Chile (leftism), Peru (movementism), and Indonesia (instrumentalism) to again demonstrate the crucial importance of union organizations. Finally, it considers avenues for future research on education policymaking, interest representation, and labor politics. A more comparative approach to the study of education is needed in political science to illuminate the different dynamics unfolding in public school systems in countries around the world.

This chapter aims to provide recommendations for how colleges can best support working college students of immigrant origin. It examines which challenges these students encounter when juggling full-time studies with working 20 or more hours a week during the academic year. Drawing on findings from qualitative, semi-structured interviews with twenty-four undergraduate students of immigrant origin in the northeastern United States, we show that these students face a confluence of challenges. The participants experienced academic, emotional, and social difficulties resulting from a time deficit and found the unpredictability of work hours and schedules challenging. They reported stress, anxiety, emotional depletion, sleep deprivation, exhaustion, and a lack of faculty support. We offer program and policy suggestions for higher education administrations and faculty to stem this confluence of challenges. These include gathering institutional data about the labor force engagement of their student population, vetting jobs on and near campus for their “student friendliness” (set time schedules and predictable, limited hours), and educating students about which jobs are student-friendly.

The increase of immigrant-origin students in higher education presses the need for new ways of understanding their university experiences. Using the concept of Funds of Knowledge, this qualitative study highlights how students experiencing food insecurity use lessons from their families to strategically navigate selective, affluent environments of resources and privilege.

Building relationships and utilizing support networks on and off campus as a first-generation college student (FGCS) from an immigrant family is critical to achieving postsecondary success. This chapter explores the personal support networks and help-seeking preferences of immigrant-origin FGCSs as part of a three-year longitudinal mixed-methods study with FGCSs at four public Hispanic-serving institutions in California. We employ social network analysis methods using survey and interview data to explore the types of relationships twelve Latinx immigrant-origin FGCSs have that provide them support in college. To guide our analysis, we use Yosso’s (2005) model of community cultural wealth. Findings reveal the significance and specific types of support provided by parents, siblings, extended family, friends and peers, co-workers, and college advisors. These findings promote an expansive view of familial support, with many connections providing encouragement, motivation, and tangible support and serving as brokers to college-based resources. Recognizing these relationships can facilitate the modification of student services and programming to help FGCSs enroll and persist in college.

This chapter seeks to investigate the impact of culturally competent mentoring on college readiness for students of immigrant origin through qualitative data. Drawing from fifty-four interviews with undergraduate students at a 4-year, Minority Serving Institution, this chapter investigates how varied mentoring experiences with college preparation, at both institutional and individual levels, impact the transition into college for students of immigrant origin. We find that students identify positive experiences with both individual and institutional culturally competent mentoring. This support provides the tools to navigate from high school to college. Additionally, interview participants identify specific behaviors and practices of their mentors that align with culturally competent pedagogy. However, students who navigate through high school with culturally competent support do not necessarily find those same conditions translate to their experiences at a four-year institution. Therefore, we argue that culturally competent individual mentorship and institutional/programmatic support are critical for preparing students to enter college as well as during their higher education journeys.

Little work has focused on the college enrollment process of students from immigrant families. Research suggests the intersection of social class and nativity is salient for understanding the college enrollment process. This study draws on data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 to examine (1) the extent to which stages of the college enrollment process systematically vary by parental nativity and education and (2) the extent to which each stage of the college enrollment process contributes to differences in postsecondary outcomes. Findings show that students with <BA parents receive less consistent messaging about the importance of college compared to students with BA+ US-born parents. Moreover, students with <BA parents and students with BA+ immigrant parents are less likely to rely on their parents for college information and are less likely to complete important college enrollment steps. Differences in the college enrollment process account for some of the differences in immediate postsecondary outcomes. Findings have implications for research on immigrant-origin and first-generation college students as well as for institutional college readiness strategies.

This chapter analyzes the evolution of the Federation of Colombian Educators (FECODE) in the 1980s and 1990s, to show how and why factionalism took hold. It first examines the Pedagogical Movement of the 1980s, a teaching-oriented social movement that reveals a fundamental split between the radical and moderate lefts. This movement sheds light on why the union was initially included in policy negotiations. It then examines broader changes in teacher–state relations that culminated in FECODE’s role in negotiating an education decentralization package that strengthened the national executive committee. The last section analyzes how the political opening contributed to more hierarchical relations and deepening political divisions.

Since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Black immigrants have migrated to the United States in increasing numbers (Tamir & Anderson, 2022) and have helped transform the Black population (Kent, 2007) in the United States broadly and within higher education (George Mwangi, 2014). Despite their racialization, experiences, and collective interests among Black students, Black immigrant collegians’ histories are distinct from Black students who are descendants of enslaved Africans. Even though they have specific educational and cultural supports to address their needs, Black immigrant collegian experiences are often understudied or excluded from immigrant scholarship (George Mwangi, 2014; Hutchinson, 2018). Further ignored are the impacts of colonialism and marginalization in US culture that shape Black immigrant student experiences (Kasinitz, 2008). This chapter analyzes institutional forces that impact Black immigrant experiences on US campuses, with particular attention to broader histories of colonialism and marginalization. We utilize an emergent framework, Culturally Engaging Campus Environments (Museus & Smith, 2016), to explore how Black immigrants navigate higher education.