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In fall 2013, California Community Colleges began to implement changes to the enrollment, or onboarding, process. These changes created a college enrollment process in which applicants to the state's community colleges complete several steps designed to create a foundation for student success, including orientation, assessment/placement, and academic counseling before enrolling in classes. Community colleges function as an accessible gateway to higher education, particularly for first generation, low-income students; however, concerns about the impact an increasingly complex community college enrollment process may have on vulnerable populations like first generation, low-income applicants prompted this study. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the persistence patterns of first generation, low-income applicants through the California Community College enrollment process as implemented by Sierra College, a community college in Rocklin, California. This study also examined the assets and liabilities that either assisted or impeded these applicants' transition through this enrollment process. To describe these persistence patterns, four cohorts of first generation, low-income, first-time student applicants from fall 2013 through spring 2015 were identified and their rates of persistence through each of the four stages of the enrollment process were analyzed. This analysis showed a loss of applicants at each stage of the process and an overall rate of persistence for first generation, low-income first-time student applicants that is consistent with the rate of persistence for all applicants to Sierra College in the same enrollment cycle. The data also show a significantly lower rate of persistence in some cohorts in some stages for female applicants as compared to males, and for African American applicants as compared to non-African American applicants. In addition, six first-generation, low-income applicants in the fall 2015 cohort were interviewed for this study. These interviews allow for a discussion of the assets that these applicants capitalized upon to aid them as they navigated the Sierra College enrollment process; it also showed the challenges, or liabilities, that impeded these applicants' transition to college. Study findings reflect the literature that shows the importance of strengthening the support provided by a first-generation, low-income applicant's social, familial, and institutional support network. For example, summer melt research findings show the positive impacts of high school, college, and community support on persistence rates and applicants' experience of the transition to college (Castleman & Page, 2014b). Findings from this study show the potential opportunities to improve applicant persistence and to improve the first-generation, low-income applicant's experience of the enrollment process through effective connection to and increased support from institutional resources.
