Understanding Experiences Of First Generation University Students

FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENTS "…a concise, manageable, lucid summary of the best scholarship, practices, and future-oriented thinking about how to effectively recruit, educate, develop, retain, and ultimately graduate first-generation students." —from the foreword by JOHN N. GARDNER First-generation students are frequently marginalized on their campuses, treated with benign disregard, and placed at a competitive disadvantage because of their invisibility. While they include 51% of all undergraduates, or approximately 9.3 million students, they are less likely than their peers to earn degrees. Among students enrolled in two-year institutions, they are significantly less likely to persist into a second year. First-Generation College Students offers academic leaders and student affairs professionals a guide for understanding the special challenges and common barriers these students face and provides the necessary strategies for helping them transition through and graduate from their chosen institutions. Based in solid research, the authors describe best practices and include suggestions and techniques that can help leaders design and implement effective curricula, out-of-class learning experiences, and student support services, as well as develop strategic plans that address issues sure to arise in the future. The authors offer an analysis of first-generation student expectations for college life and academics and examine the powerful role cultural capital plays in shaping their experiences and socialization. Providing a template for other campuses, the book highlights programmatic initiatives at colleges around the county that effectively serve first-generation students and create a powerful learning environment for their success. First-Generation College Students provides a much-needed portrait of the cognitive, developmental, and social factors that affect the college-going experiences and retention rates of this growing population of college students.

The experiences of first-generation college students are not monolithic. The nexus of identities matter, and this book is intended to challenge the reader to explore what it means to be a first-generation college student in higher education. Designed for use in classrooms and for use by the higher education practitioner on a college campus today, At the Intersections will be of value to the reader throughout their professional career.The book is divided into four parts with chapters of research and theory interspersed with thought pieces to provide personal stories to integrate the research and theory into lived experience. Each thought piece ends with questions to inspire readers to engage with the topic.Part One: Who is a First-generation College Student? provides the reader an entrée into the topic, with up-to-date data on both four-year and two-year colleges. Part One ends with a thought piece that asks the reader to pull together some of the big ideas before moving on to look more closely at students’ identities.Part Two: The Intersection of Identity shares the research, experience and thoughts of authors in relation to the individual and overlapping identities of LGBT, low-income, white, African-American, Latinx, Native American, undocumented, female, and male students who are all also first-generation college students. Part Three: Programs and Practices is an introduction to practices, policies and programs across the country. This section offers promise and direction for future work as institutions try to find a successful array of approaches to make the campus an inclusive place for the diverse population of first-generation college students.

Over the past few decades universities have opened their doors to students whose parents and grandparents were historically excluded from societal participation and higher education for reasons associated with racial, ethnic, socio-economic and/or linguistic diversity. Many of these students are first generation - or first in their family to attend university. While some progress has been made in responding to the needs of these internationally underserved learners, many challenges remain. This edited book features the unique and diverse experiences of first generation students as they transition into and engage with higher education whilst exploring ways in which universities might better serve these students. With reference to culturally responsive and sustaining research methodologies undertaken in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK and the USA, the contributors critically examine how these students demonstrate resilience within university, and ways in which success and challenges are articulated. Elements that are unique to context and shared across the international higher education milieu are explored. The book is replete with diverse student voices, and compelling implications for practice and future research. The studies featured are centred on underlying theories of identity and intersectionality while valuing student voices and experiences. Throughout, the emphasis is on using strengths-based indigenous and decolonised methodologies. Through these culturally sustaining approaches, which include critical incident technique, participatory learning and action, talanoa and narrative inquiry, the book explores rich data on first generation student experiences at seven institutions in six countries across four continents.

FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENTS "...a concise, manageable, lucid summary of the best scholarship, practices, and future-oriented thinking about how to effectively recruit, educate, develop, retain, and ultimately graduate first-generation students." from the foreword by JOHN N. GARDNER First-generation students are frequently marginalized on their campuses, treated with benign disregard, and placed at a competitive disadvantage because of their invisibility. While they include 51% of all undergraduates, or approximately 9.3 million students, they are less likely than their peers to earn degrees. Among students enrolled in two-year institutions, they are significantly less likely to persist into a second year. First-Generation College Students offers academic leaders and student affairs professionals a guide for understanding the special challenges and common barriers these students face and provides the necessary strategies for helping them transition through and graduate from their chosen institutions. Based in solid research, the authors describe best practices and include suggestions and techniques that can help leaders design and implement effective curricula, out-of-class learning experiences, and student support services, as well as develop strategic plans that address issues sure to arise in the future. The authors offer an analysis of first-generation student expectations for college life and academics and examine the powerful role cultural capital plays in shaping their experiences and socialization. Providing a template for other campuses, the book highlights programmatic initiatives at colleges around the county that effectively serve first-generation students and create a powerful learning environment for their success. First-Generation College Students provides a much-needed portrait of the cognitive, developmental, and social factors that affect the college-going experiences and retention rates of this growing population of college students.

A revealing look at the experiences of first generation students on elite campuses and the hidden curriculum they must master in order to succeed College has long been viewed as an opportunity for advancement and mobility for talented students regardless of background. Yet for first generation students, elite universities can often seem like bastions of privilege, with unspoken academic norms and social rules. The Hidden Curriculum draws on more than one hundred in-depth interviews with students at Harvard and Georgetown to offer vital lessons about the challenges of being the first in the family to go to college, while also providing invaluable insights into the hurdles that all undergraduates face. As Rachel Gable follows two cohorts of first generation students and their continuing generation peers, she discovers surprising similarities as well as striking differences in their college experiences. She reveals how the hidden curriculum at legacy universities often catches first generation students off guard, and poignantly describes the disorienting encounters on campus that confound them and threaten to derail their success. Gable shows how first-gens are as varied as any other demographic group, and urges universities to make the most of the diverse perspectives and insights these talented students have to offer. The Hidden Curriculum gives essential guidance on the critical questions that university leaders need to consider as they strive to support first generation students on campus, and demonstrates how universities can balance historical legacies and elite status with practices and policies that are equitable and inclusive for all students.

Co-published with More first-generation students are attending college than ever before, and policy makers agree that increasing their participation in higher education is a matter of priority. Despite this, there is no agreed definition about the term, few institutions can quantify how many first-generation students are enrolled, or mistakenly conflate them with low-income students, and many important dimensions to the first-generation student experience remain poorly documented. Few institutions have in place a clear, well-articulated practice for assisting first-generation students to succeed. Given that first-generation students comprise over 40% of incoming freshmen, increasing their retention and graduation rates can dramatically increase an institution’s overall retention and graduation rates, and enhance its image and desirability. It is clearly in every institution’s self-interest to ensure its first-generation students succeed, to identify and count them, and understand how to support them. This book provides high-level administrators with a plan of action for deans to create the awareness necessary for meaningful long-term change, sets out a campus acclimation process, and provides guidelines for the necessary support structures.At the heart of the book are 14 first-person narratives – by first-generation students spanning freshman to graduate years – that help the reader get to grips with the variety of ethnic and economic categories to which they belong. The book concludes by defining 14 key issues that institutions need to address, and offers a course of action for addressing them. This book is intended for everyone who serves these students – faculty, academic advisors, counselors, student affairs professionals, admissions officers, and administrators – and offers a set of best practices for how two- and four-year institutions can improve the success of their first-generation student populations.An ACPA Publication

From the Editor The population of first-generation college students (FGS) is increasing in an ever-tightening economy, a time when employers demand a college degree even for an initial interview. According to a 2007 study by UCLA?s Higher Education Research Institute, nearly one in six freshmen at American four-year institutions is firstgeneration. However, FGS often straddle different cultures between school and home, and many feel socially, ethnically, academically, and emotionally marginalized on campus. Because of these disparities, FGS frequently encounter barriers to academic success and require additional campus support resources. Some institutions offer increased financial aid and loan-free aid packages to FGS, but these remedies?although welcome?do not fully address the diverse and complex challenges that these students experience. Responding to these complexities, this volume?s chapters extend previous research by examining the multiple transitions experienced by both undergraduate and graduate FGS. This volume?s cuttingedge research will help college and university administrators, faculty, and staff work better with FGS through more effective pedagogy and institutional programs. Ultimately, this volume affirms how learning communities are strengthened when they include diverse student populations such as FGS and meet their particular emotional, academic, and financial needs.

A companion to First in the Family: Your High School Years, this next-step guidebook straight from their peers tells first-generation college students how to stay in college and graduate.