Abstract
Graduate students navigate challenges in higher education with determination and tenacity. Postgraduate studies are enticing for career and personal advancement, but with an attrition rate of 12 – 26%, even the best students fail. The expectation and pressure to maintain high academic standards are often daunting. Many graduate students battle with emotional health and feelings of isolation, work-life balance, asynchronous learning, and other invisible factors, but still manage to find motivation to persist. We used personal experiences, information, and insight from our Winona State University leadership communication class to examine potential difficulties graduate students face. We backed our findings with extensive research that identified possible solutions to mitigate common struggles that students face in higher education. Strategies to endure these obstacles include building a tight-knit community among peers and professors, advocating for personal well-being, and finding a balance. Identifying these hurdles and learning to manage them is key to a successful graduate experience.
Recommended Citation
Kramer, M., Buerkle, M., Arlen, H., Gravelle, A., & Bruess, E. (2025). Navigating the Graduate Student Experience: Grit, Growth, and Persistence. The Journal of Advancing Education Practice, 6(2). https://openriver.winona.edu/jaep/vol6/iss2/6
