Resettled Refugee Experiences of Aspiring To and Navigating Through the Postsecondary Access Process

More than 3 million refugees have resettled in the U.S. alone since 1948 (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2018). Less than 10% of refugees resettled in the U.S. make educational advancements of any kind post-resettlement, and only six percent of refugees worldwide have entered postsecondary education (Capps and Fix, 2015; Ferede, 2018; Kerwin, 2012; Mendenhall, Russell and Buckner, 2017; U.S. Department of State, 2017; UNHCR, 2017, 2019, 2021). Despite these data, there is no lack of desire to attend college or university among refugees who have completed secondary school (Dryden-Peterson et al., 2010). This post-intentional phenomenological study sought to understand more deeply the lived experiences of resettled refugees accessing postsecondary education and how they utilize navigational and aspirational capital to negotiate exploration, application, and enrollment processes. Findings of this study surfaced barriers resettled refugees in the United States navigate at the meso-, macro-, and micro-levels of postsecondary educational access, the community cultural wealth that resettled refugees create, and how they utilize this capital to navigate the complexities of an educational system created without them in mind. This study has implications for secondary and postsecondary professionals, policymakers at the state and federal levels, and for researchers who are interested in postsecondary educational access for resettled refugees.