By Joseph Kitchen and Zoë Corwin

For many low-income students, the transition to college brings unique challenges. Navigating unfamiliar academic systems, decoding institutional jargon, and finding a sense of belonging can be daunting in environments that often privilege middle- and upper-class norms and expectations. These hurdles do not just affect academic performance — they can also limit students’ confidence in their ability to succeed in their chosen majors and future careers.

Integrating peer mentors into career support programming is a promising practice for better supporting low-income college students’ major and career development. Peer mentors can demystify the college experience, open doors to resources, and, perhaps most importantly, instill a sense of confidence in students’ chosen major and career path which in turn can bolster motivation and likelihood to persist in college. 

While peer mentoring programs are widely used across higher education, little research has been done, to date, to understand their role in promoting major and career self-efficacy (i.e., student confidence in their abilities to do what is necessary to accomplish their career goals). We aimed to study whether and how engaging with peer mentors shaped low-income college students’ major and career self-efficacy.

What We Studied

The Promoting At-promise Student Success (PASS) research project followed two cohorts of low-income students who entered college in 2015 and 2016 and who participated in peer mentoring in their first-year of college as part of a comprehensive college transition program. We leveraged the following data collected as part of the PASS project to examine the effects of peer mentoring on first-year, low-income college students’ success:

• Surveys of nearly 800 first-year students that measured academic self-efficacy, career confidence, sense of belonging, and other key outcomes.
• Interviews with 83 students that captured the stories behind the numbers.

This combination of data allowed us not only to track broad patterns but also to understand how mentoring relationships shaped students’ day-to-day experiences. We explicitly drew on this data to answer the question of whether and how peer mentors influenced low-income students’ major and career self-efficacy.

What We Found

Students who regularly engaged with their peer mentors experienced stronger outcomes across multiple dimensions of success. Perhaps one of the most important outcomes was the role of mentors in supporting students’ career self-efficacy — the belief in their ability to achieve their professional goals. Engagement with peer mentors was linked to increases in students’ career self-efficacy — which is critical to students’ short- and long-term success during college and as they later transition into the workforce. Many low-income students enter college without access to family networks or insider knowledge about career pathways. Mentors stepped in to bridge that gap. Peer mentors can transform uncertainty into confidence by providing access, encouragement and a sense of possibility.

In reviewing interviews, students provided key insights into how the peer mentor support shaped their success in college, including bolstering confidence in their major and career pathways. Specifically, students described mentors as providing three kinds of critical support:

• Proactive guidance on navigating college systems and resources — including academic and career-related resources and support.
• Validating messages that affirmed students’ strengths and potential — including their capabilities for finding majors that were a good fit for them and successfully pursuing their desired career paths, with the right resources.
• Holistic care that recognized both the personal and academic challenges low-income students face in their journey through college.

These dimensions of support went beyond surface-level advice. By affirming students’ abilities and meeting them where they were, peer mentors helped students see themselves as capable scholars and future professionals.

Why This Matters

The implications of these findings are significant. Low-income students make up a growing share of college-goers in the United States, yet they continue to graduate at lower rates than their higher-income peers. Traditional financial aid and academic advising, while important, are not enough to address the social and cultural barriers students face. Peer mentoring — when designed with intentionality — offers a scalable, evidence-based strategy that can contribute to closing these gaps by bolstering students’ confidence in their major and career pathways — which again — is linked to college success and persistence. Mentors trained to provide proactive, validating and holistic support can boost not only academic confidence but also career readiness. And because this mentoring initiative operated at scale, serving thousands of students across multiple campuses, the lessons learned can inform institutions nationwide.

Looking Ahead

Our study underscores that how peer mentoring is delivered is just as important as whether it is implemented. Simply pairing students with peers is not enough. Programs must invest in mentor training that emphasizes asset-based approaches, encourages deep relationship building, and equips mentors to guide students across academic, social and career domains. We should note that our work explores how peer mentors can complement, not replace other forms of career development and transition support provided by faculty and staff.

For educators and policymakers, the message is clear: peer mentoring can be a central component of comprehensive efforts to support low-income students’ college success — including bolstering confidence in their major and career pathways. When students see that their goals are achievable, and that others believe in their potential, they are more likely to thrive and succeed. By boosting career self-efficacy and affirming low-income students’ place in higher education, peer mentors help ensure that today’s low-income students become tomorrow’s confident graduates and professionals.

Please click here to find an article and practitioner brief about peer mentoring, including its role in promoting major and career self-efficacy.