What Do These Student Success Stories Tell Us?

Abstract

The personal stories featured in this section of the book demonstrate the need to theorize a more fluid, less rigid understanding of student transition to higher education. Even this brief glimpse into the dizzying variety of ways that students now transition to higher education and pursue a college degree suggests the need for a more open and accommodating understanding of this important transition point in American lives. The work of Trevor Gale and Stephen Parker (“Navigating Change: A Typology of Student Transition in Higher Education”) and a recent report from American College Testing (ACT) about this subject, “The Reality of College Readiness 2013,” make it abundantly clear that traditional ideas about attending college have become outmoded.