Underprepared Community College Students: Characteristics, Persistence, and Academic Success

Academically underprepared community college students demonstrated a lower course completion rate, greater attrition, more text anxiety, and a more external locus of control than college‐ready students, but they did not demonstrate differences in grade point average (GPA), learning‐study strategies, or self‐esteem. Both college‐ready and academically underprepared persisters achieved greater academic success, as measured by course completion rate and GPA, but reported lower general self‐esteem than did nonpersisters.