Date of Award

5-7-2026

Access Restriction

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctorate in Education

Department

Education

School or College

School of Education

First Advisor

William Perez

Second Advisor

Cynthia Alcantar

Third Advisor

Keisha Chin Goosby

Abstract

Undocumented college students in the United States graduate with degrees in hand, but face a labor market that, for many, remains legally inaccessible. Despite growing enrollment across higher education institutions, this student population continued to navigate career development in the near minimal institutional support designed for their specific circumstances. This qualitative study examined how career services at small private liberal arts colleges responded to the needs of undocumented students, particularly those without Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA; Napolitano, 2012), as they navigated career development during and after college (Kantamneni, Dharmalingam, et al., 2016; Kantamneni, Shada, et al., 2016; Morales Hernandez & Enriquez, 2021), and explored how culturally relevant theoretical frameworks can inform more equitable institutional practice. Drawing on testimonio [personal testimony as a form of knowledge production] as both methodology and epistemology (Delgado Bernal et al., 2012; Latina Feminist Group, 2001; Perez Huber, 2009b), this study centered the lived experiences of thirteen undocumented college students across multiple small private liberal arts institutions. Guided by three interrelated frameworks: UndocuCrit (Aguilar, 2019), Community Cultural Wealth (CCW; Yosso, 2005), and the Critical Theory of Love (CToL; Brooks, 2017), this study examined the structural barriers, institutional failures, and cultural assets that shaped undocumented students’ professional trajectories. This study contributed to a critical gap in higher education scholarship by focusing specifically on the liberal arts college context, a site largely absent from existing literature. It offered theoretical, practical, and policy-level recommendations for career services practitioners, institutional leaders, professional associations, and policymakers committed to serving undocumented students with competence, intentionality, and institutional love. In a political moment defined by hostility toward undocumented communities, this dissertation argued that equitable career development is not peripheral to the mission of higher education. It is among its most urgent and unfulfilled promises.

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