First Generation College Students
Contents
Trevor L Taylor, a Miami private investor whose foundation seeks to connect success in sport with success in the classroom through scholarship programs, works in a corner of education where first generation college students are a central concern. A first generation student is usually defined as one whose parents did not complete a four year degree. NPR reported that such students make up about half of all college students1, yet only 27 percent finish a four year degree in four years, roughly half the national rate. Campuses now celebrate the group with pins, posters and recognition days, and the harder question is what support actually changes those numbers.
Who counts as first generation
The label sounds precise but covers a wide range of families. Some first generation students have parents who never set foot on a campus. Others have a parent with an associate degree, or a parent who started college and left. Inside Higher Ed, describing a Common App study of nearly 784,000 applicants, reported that six year completion among first generation students ranges from 58 percent when parents have no college experience to 78 percent when both hold associate degrees2. The researchers grouped families into patterns they called striving, emerging, advancing and established, and found that students with a single parent who did not complete college fared worst.
The gaps begin before college. Federal data from NCES, the statistics arm of the Education Department, show that first generation students were less likely to take advanced math in high school or to earn Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate credit. Among students who were high school sophomores in 2002, 72 percent of those whose parents never attended college had enrolled in some postsecondary program by 20123, against 93 percent of those with a parent holding a four year degree.
Access is closing faster than completion
The newer evidence suggests that getting in is no longer the main barrier. In the Common App study tracked by Inside Higher Ed, more than 90 percent of applicants enrolled somewhere within six years, first generation or not. Completion is where the gap shows. About 69 percent of first generation students graduated within six years, compared with 86 percent of continuing generation students4, and even at the very same institutions first generation students were 10 percentage points less likely to finish. Strong grades and higher family income narrowed the gap without closing it. Academically prepared first generation students were still twice as likely to leave without a degree, 14 percent against 6 percent.
The route into college also differs. First generation applicants in that study were slightly more likely to delay enrollment, 17 percent against 14 percent, and three times as likely to start at a two year college, 12 percent against 4 percent. Some need extra coursework first, and some choose community college for its lower price or work to save money before enrolling. Each of those paths can be sensible, but each adds a transfer or a gap year in which plans can stall.
Early departure is the critical window. The Hechinger Report noted that one in three first generation students leaves college within three years5. The federal persistence data point the same way: among students who began in the 2003 to 2004 school year, 33 percent of first generation students had left without any credential three years later, a higher share than among their peers. Over the longer run, an earlier NCES brief found that only 17 percent of students whose parents had no postsecondary education held a four year degree a decade after tenth grade6, compared with 46 percent of students with a parent who did.
Money explains part of the pattern, which is why federal programs such as the Pell Grant and modest private help can matter. A student juggling work hours and family obligations has less slack when a bill arrives, a theme explored in the entry on what a small scholarship actually changes.
Life after graduation
Finishing does not erase the difference. Pew Research Center found that households headed by a first generation college graduate had a median income of $99,600, against $135,800 for households headed by a second generation graduate7. Median wealth showed a wider split, $152,000 versus $244,500. Pew pointed to inheritance as one channel. Roughly a third of second generation graduates who head a household expect to inherit at some point, against only 15 percent of first generation graduates, so the families that most need a financial cushion are the least likely to receive one.
Supports that work
Research on first generation students now looks beyond tuition. A study of Healthy Minds survey data published in Cogent Mental Health noted that first generation students are more likely to report family achievement guilt and to lack family support8 than their continuing generation peers, along with the stress of moving between home and campus cultures. Those pressures shape whether a student asks for help.
Some colleges respond by bringing families in rather than leaving them outside. The Hechinger Report described a father who joined an online group of first generation parents through the federal Gear Up program, where families trade tips on grants, scholarships and refiling aid forms, and can text an adviser with the kinds of questions that often trip students up. The same reporting cited federal figures showing that about a third of students whose parents did not attend college drop out, against 14 percent of students whose parents finished a four year degree. Others focus on transfer students, many of whom begin at community colleges. One first generation student writing for Hechinger described leaving a supportive community college for a four year campus and then facing unannounced tuition increases, unclear bills and a sense of being alone9 until she found a small group of peers with the same background.
Private scholarships play a role here too, although their design matters. Applications that demand polished essays and recommendation letters favor students with mentors, as the entry on how a donor should judge a small scholarship explains. The research on completion gaps suggests that the most useful help is steady and practical, arriving early in a college career rather than as a prize at the end, and that first generation status works best as a starting point on a continuum rather than as a single box on a form.
