Student veterans in higher education: The critical role of veterans resource centers

Abstract

Objective

To examine how veterans resource centers (VRCs) and corresponding services influence student veteran transitions by applying the Schlossberg Transition Model.

Participants

12 student support staff and 6 junior/senior undergraduate student veterans at a four-year public university in California.

Methods

In-depth semi-structured, one-on-one interviews were conducted with diverse group of university staff and student veterans. Thematic analyses were conducted to identify salient factors that help promote successful transition to college life.

Results

Overarching theme was the significance of the university’s veterans resource center (VRC), which is a designated space that facilitates connectedness and student engagement; fosters collaborations across student support services via liaisons to increase access to vital services/resources on/off campus, provides peer-to-peer mentorship; and includes staff, who understand military culture.

Conclusions

Higher education should expand supporting student veterans by having a VRC to help them successfully transition to college life; this would ultimately improve retention and graduation rates.

Keywords:

• Higher education
• Schlossberg Transition Model
• student veterans
• transition to college
• veterans resource centers (VRCs)

Acknowledgments

This paper is based on a study conducted for the completion of the joint doctoral program in Education Leadership at the University of California San Diego and California State University San Marcos. We thank the reviewers, whose insightful suggestions and revisions helped improve and clarify the manuscript.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of United States and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of California State University San Marcos.

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.