“My Entire Support System for Graduate School”: Black Students’ Experiences in a McNair Scholars Program

This qualitative, multi-site case study across three McNair Scholars Programs uses interviews to explore Black students’ aspirations to attend graduate school. While the undergraduate students in this study faced various personal and academic challenges at their predominantly white institutions (PWIs), all the 13 students used community cultural wealth by way of seven forms of capital to join and engage with their institution's McNair Scholars Program. In their own words, the students in this study describe how their campus McNair Program supported their persistence, namely, the program's benefits, how the program helped to boost their confidence, and the significance of their faculty mentors. Lastly, the students describe how they used several forms of capital to overcome systemic barriers and pursue graduate education. The findings identify how institutional agents and programs, like McNair Scholars, can nurture and build upon the assets that Black students already have to support undergraduate retention and graduate persistence.