Guided by a phenomenological approach, this qualitative study examines the resilience and cultural wealth of Latino men as they navigate the transfer process at a two-year community college. This study conducted four semi-structured interviews to highlight how, despite facing difficult circumstances, individual factors along with their aspirational and navigational capital positively impact Latino men in higher education. Ultimately, this study aims for four things (a) to add to the limited amount of research of Latino men in community college (b) to display the success of Latino men in higher education (c) to challenge deficit notions of Latino men in higher education and (d) to provide findings that will inform the community college sector of the Latino men transfer experience.

As community colleges have often been referred to as the equalizers in the U.S. higher education system, it is important to examine how these institutions reproduce inequities for Black and Latino/a/e students as they navigate their educational journeys. Through a narrative qualitative research design, this dissertation study collected 20 interviews with Black and Latino/a/e current and former students from three community college sites in addition to an analysis of online modalities to explore the structural and procedural challenges that cool-out these students from community college. This study implemented the use of institutional precarity (Hart, 2019) and procedural cooling-out (Anderson, 2015) to examine how the structural and procedural challenges in community colleges directly impact the educational goals of Black and Latino/a/e students. In addition, this study focused on the micro-decisions (Anderson, 2015) of students to explore how students made daily academic decisions as they encountered these challenges. Findings revealed Black and Latino/a/e students experience several structural and procedural challenges that influence their cooling-out. Additionally, Black and Latino/a/e students face unique challenges based on their race and ethnicity which are upheld by placement policies like AB705, the allocation of resources, and disciplinary and advising practices. For this reason, this dissertation study demonstrates that community college attrition rates can be attributed to the structural and procedural challenges along with racialized challenges embedded within the college. Research findings from this study suggest community college scholars should expand this work and focus on practices, policies, and reforms with a racialized lens as they often exacerbate inequities in the community college system. Additionally, this study calls for equitable legislation and practices that promote retention and academic support for Black and Latino/a/e community college students.