“Enjoy your time and be confident”: Honoring autistic community college students’ multifaceted interpretations of success.

Abstract

To date, our understanding of autistic college students’ experiences has largely excluded or avoided centering the experiences of this neurodivergent community, especially when it comes to defining their success. Our investigation aims to center the priorities of autistic students enrolled in community colleges, postsecondary institutions where most autistic students enroll in higher education at some point in their academic career. Our national study of autistic community college student success employs latent content analysis in processing the qualitative survey comments of 68 participants attending community college, in which we asked them how they made sense of what constitutes, contributes to, and could potentially further support their success. We draw from an original framework recognizing the holistic college student experience alongside Wang's momentum model of community college student success. Through content analysis, we identified four key themes indicating success can (a) manifest as skill development and attainment, (b) be linked to one-on-one relationships, (c) entail connecting to specific resources, and (d) mean unique needs are accounted for (e.g., issues with finances and transportation in community colleges). We propose that college faculty enhance their understanding of autism to better support their learners’ needs, whereas researchers must more intentionally attend to the unique components of autistic college students’ considerations of success that our findings raise. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)