A Comparative Study of Four-year and Community College Students’ Subjective Experiences of Emerging Adulthood, The Need to Belong, and Well-being. **Version 1:** [McCoy SS, Chou CP, Grahe JE et al. A comparative study of four-year and community college students' subjective experiences of emerging adulthood, belonging needs, and well-being \[version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations\]. Routledge Open Res 2022, 1:17 (https://doi.org/10.12688/routledgeopenres.17573.1)][1] **Abstract:** Research on the core features of emerging adulthood has disproportionately focused on students from four-year universities. We assess whether the core features of emerging adulthood (as the age of possibilities, instability, identity explorations, and feeling in-between) vary between four-year university and community college students. We also explore how emerging adults compare on the need to belong and subjective well-being. Using data from the EAMMi2 project (Grahe et al., 2018), we found that four-year university students (N = 1,221) identified more strongly with the negativity/instability and feeling in-between dimensions of emerging adulthood than community college students (N = 300). Community college students, however, were higher on identity exploration, with no differences between the groups in identification with the experimentation/possibilities feature of emerging adulthood. Four-year students reported higher well-being and higher belonging needs compared to their counterparts at community colleges. Regardless of school type, experimentation/possibilities and feeling in-between predicted higher well-being whereas negativity/instability predicted lower well-being and higher belonging needs. These findings highlight nuance in the experiences of emerging adulthood, as evidenced by both some shared experiences and group-level differences. **Supplemental Files** [Extended Data - Inclusion of non-binary participants][2] [Extended Data - Inclusion of Income data][3] [1]: https://routledgeopenresearch.org/articles/1-17 [2]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Tp05iHi7sgeB7lKRLzYIbhaCuw-0pbrFNnAHHzbRCS8/edit?usp=sharing [3]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12J3xG5qs-LfO_AwwwBUotC5QOcJlCDVcpZCg-TSeQO0/edit?usp=sharing