Theses and Dissertations

Advisor

King, Stephanie B.

Committee Member

Coats, Linda T.

Committee Member

Fincher, Mark E.

Committee Member

White, Carol

Date of Degree

5-16-2025

Original embargo terms

Embargo 2 years

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Community College Leadership

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Education

Department

Department of Industrial Technology, Instructional Design, and Community College Leadership

Abstract

The Higher Education Act of 1965 and Higher Education Emergency Relief Funds have paved the way for financial support to help Americans further their education. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore the perceptions of community college financial aid and admissions practitioners regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on themselves, their colleges, and their students before, during, and after the pandemic. The study sought to understand practitioners’ roles and interactions with students, college protocols and services, amount of information students sought and challenges they faced, and changes brought about due to the pandemic. In addition, the study sought to explore the practitioners’ perceptions of the effects, if any, of the policies and procedures implemented by the college due to the pandemic on students’ financial information seeking and enrolling behaviors. The study used a phenomenological approach and included community college practitioners in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee who were employed at those community colleges at any time during the academic years of 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22, and 2022-23. Purposeful sampling and snowball sampling were used to identify study participants. Participants were interviewed via phone and an electronic virtual platform. Study participants included 10 participants from 3 different institutions in 3 different states. Study results revealed the pandemic forced colleges’ manual way of processing documents to become digital, students’ response time to institutional requested information increased, and sanitation protocols put in place during the pandemic extended beyond the pandemic. Practitioners discussed losing family members and personal health issues due to COVID-19, concerns of job stability, institutional enrollment fluctuations, and changing work environments in addition to internet and equipment challenges due to geographical location. Several practitioners expressed the challenges students faced and the impact the changes had on students’ decisions to further or delay their post-secondary education. Study implications provide researchers, policy makers, and institutions with information from a rarely studied subgroup of higher education professionals.

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