COMMUNITY COLLEGE RESEARCH INITIATIVES - RURAL LEARNER SUCCESS DATA NOTE SERIES - DATA NOTE 4 - FEBRUARY 2026

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Kyle

Rural community college students’ perspectives on mentorship are examined to understand how student-reported experiences shape academic persistence, confidence, belonging, and career outcomes. The study addresses how mentorship affects learners’ academic and career plans, especially where access is limited by rural distance, staffing constraints, and competing work and caregiving demands. Survey data from 99 students complements qualitative reflections, highlighting mentorship as a turning point for exploration and support during key transitions.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Study Context and Data Sources

Institutional Website Review

Interviews and Survey Data

COMMUNITY COLLEGE RESEARCH INITIATIVES RURAL LEARNER SUCCESS DATA NOTE SERIES Rural community college students’perspectives on mentorship and academic and career outcomes Jordan A. Reed, Mayra Nu ñez Martinez, Susannah C. Davis, and Lia Wetzstein DATA NOTE 4 | FEBRUARY 2026 While traditional research often evaluates mentorship through the lens of program design and practitioner perspectives, a more nuanced understanding emerges when the focus shifts to student-reported impacts. By centering student perceptions, researchers can gain vital insight into which specific types of mentorship hold the most value, how these relationships directly influence success, and where critical gaps in support remain. This transition leads to a fundamental guiding question: How do students feel the mentorship experience at their colleges affects their academic and career outcomes? By answering this, institutions can move beyond structural metrics and begin to address the authentic needs and aspirations of the learners themselves. INTRODUCTION Mentoring is a high-impact practice that supports students’persistence, confidence, and sense of belonging, particularly for learners navigating systemic inequities (Ballin et al., 2025; Brooms et al., 2021; Brown et al., 2021; Crisp, 2010; Kitchen et al., 2025; Soria & White, 2023) . For rural community college students, however, access to sustained mentoring is often constrained by distance, limited staffing, and the competing demands of work and caregiving (Chandler & Baeta, 2023; Puente, 2022; Rush-Marlowe, 2021; Wells et al., 2019) . While previous research has found that the majority of ruralserving community colleges had at least one mentoring opportunity listed on their college websites (see Data Note 1), access to rural mentoring remains limited and ruralserving community colleges operate within constrained funding and fewer institutional resources than their urban counterparts. At the same time, rural communities offer distinctive relational strengths, including close-knit networks, reciprocity, and shared experience, that can support meaningful mentoring relationships when programs are intentionally designed for place (Cain et al., 2024; Crumb et al., 2023; McNamee et al., 2025) . While prior research has largely focused on mentoring program structures or practitioner perspectives, less is known about how rural community college students themselves experience mentorship and how these relationships influence academic and career decisionmaking. Student perspectives can illuminate what forms of mentoring matter most, how mentoring shapes students’confidence and planning, and where gaps in support remain, particularly in institutions that serve as central hubs for advising, financial aid, and student support across wide geographic regions. Guided by the question: How do students feel the mentorship experience at their colleges affects their academic and career outcomes?, this study draws on survey data from 99 students nationwide collected as part of the Rural Learner Success project. This data note integrates quantitative associations with students’ qualitative reflections to highlight how mentorship functions as a turning point in academic and career direction, a catalyst for career exploration and planning, and a source of relational [uw. edu/cc ri](uw. edu/cc ri) 1 RURAL LEARNER SUCCESS DATA NOTE SERIES | Rural community college students’ perspectives on mentorship, academic and career outcomes support during academic and career transitions in rural community college contexts. STUDY CONTEXT AND DATA SOURCES The Rural Learner Success project began with a review of institutional websites across 444 rural-serving community colleges (see Data Note 1) . In this review, we found that more than half (52%) of mentoring opportunities focused on career readiness/exploration and financial support/advising, while 47% focused on academic advising, and about a third focused on

FAQs

What guiding question does the study use to examine mentorship?

How do students feel the mentorship experience at their colleges affects their academic and career outcomes?

How was the study data collected?

The study uses survey data from 99 students nationwide and integrates it with qualitative reflections from student mentees and mentors.

What does the study focus on regarding mentorship opportunities?

It categorizes mentorship opportunities by focus areas such as career readiness/exploration and financial advising, academic advising, enrollment and transition, and academic success strategies.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Kyle