A discussion of disadvantaged students in 2-year colleges concludes that they usually come from minority groups, are underrepresented in institutions of higher education, have little economic support and are characterized by marginal traditional academic qualifications. A number of classification schemes used by social scientists are discussed with the implication that administrators of 2-year colleges need to be more sensitive in identifying and selecting students who might have some chance of academic success. The final section of this paper reports that a sample of administrators view the major causes of disadvantaged student attrition as inadequate motivation, student finances, emotional stability, and academic abilities. A large percentage of administrators indicated a lack of district support of such students and inadequate finances for institutional programs. The questionnaire surveying the administrators is appended. (MN)