Community Colleges Must Foster ‘Culture of Caring’ to Boost Student Success, Major Report Finds

Students who feel supported and connected at their community colleges demonstrate higher engagement levels and stronger academic performance, according to a major new national report released Tuesday by the Center for Community College Student Engagement.

Dr. Linda L. GarcíaThe report, “Essential Conditions for Community College Student Success: Maximizing Student Engagement by Fostering a Culture of Caring,” draws on survey responses from more than 54,000 students at 127 community colleges and nearly 10,000 entering students at 58 institutions. The findings reveal that while many students experience support, significant gaps remain in creating comprehensive caring environments.

“Connections have always been at the heart of student success,” said Dr. Linda L. García, executive director of CCCSE. “These findings confirm that when caring becomes an institutional practice—not just an individual act—students are more likely to stay, learn, and complete.”

The report examines five components of a caring culture: sense of belonging, self-efficacy, stigma and help-seeking behaviors, basic needs support, and mental health and well-being. Students experiencing a “strong culture of caring” showed markedly higher engagement across all five CCSSE benchmarks compared to those experiencing a “weak” or “mixed” culture of caring.

However, the data revealed troubling gaps. Sixteen percent of respondents said they feel invisible to faculty and staff, and 12% disagreed with the statement “I belong at this college.” Nearly one in five students said their college does not prioritize mental health and emotional well-being.

The findings also challenge assumptions about which students need support. Substantial percentages of students not traditionally considered most vulnerable—including those who don’t receive Pell Grants or aren’t taking developmental education courses—reported that issues like working full time, caring for dependents, and lack of finances could cause them to withdraw.

Basic needs insecurity remains widespread. Among the 26% of entering students who indicated they needed food assistance, nearly half said no one had asked them about it. Similarly, among students who needed housing support, 74% of Pell Grant recipients and 79% of non-Pell recipients said their college had not helped them in the past 12 months.

The report also found that traditional-age students were more likely than their older peers to feel intimidated about asking instructors for help (32% versus 20%) and to believe that asking for help makes them feel weak (28% versus 18%).

“We need to change how we think. [We always make] the student the problem. The student is not the problem. We have to change how we look at the student,” one staff member told focus group researchers.

The report highlights successful practices at colleges implementing Caring Campus strategies developed by the Institute for Evidence-Based Change. Examples include “Ask Me Anything” welcome weeks where staff volunteers help orient new students, “warm referrals” where employees personally escort students to support offices, and faculty arriving early to class to build informal connections.

CCCSE recommends that colleges make support services both easily accessible and “inescapable” by proactively connecting with all students multiple times through multiple channels, beginning with their earliest college interactions. The report emphasizes that everyone on campus—from presidents to custodial staff—can play a role in fostering a culture of caring.

In an interview, García said that with all that is happening in society, students need to feel seen and supported. 

“They come to us to be successful, but along that journey, they’re going to have to jump through hurdles. They’re juggling multiple jobs, they’re caring for their parents. They just have so many other obligations. And so when they have to jump through those hurdles, colleges need to step up and care more for them.”

That care, García added, has to extend beyond the classroom. 

“We need to look at the student more holistically than ever. And I do believe the National Movement Guided Pathways is helping us with that conversation, and there is momentum, but we still have a lot more work to be done.”

The Center for Community College Student Engagement is a service and research initiative in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy in the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin.