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| First-Generation Students Speak Out by WKCD| MAY 14, 2015
For more than a decade, WKCD has chronicled the special challenges faced by students who are the first in their family to attend college. We began with a focus on college access for low-income, minority students—labels that describe most first-generation students. Soon our focus shifted to attainment. How many of these "new" students actually obtain a four-year degree? According to the Pell Institute, only 11 percent of first-generation, low-income college students receive a degree within six years. (The degree attainment rate for students who are neither low-income nor first-generation is 54 percent.) Our own interviews with first-generation students underscore the reasons, from poor academic preparation to balancing full-time employment with full course loads. Faced with a torrent of assumptions about who they are or are not, first-generation students tend to keep these burdens to themselves, ashamed of their circumstances or of asking for help. Suddenly, however, the struggles of first-generation students—especially at some of our nation's "elite" private institutions—are making headlines, as students step forward and reporters seek out their stories. Laura Pappano writes in The New York Times about Ana Barros, who grew up by vacant lots in Newark but was a star student and got accepted at Harvard. She expected to fit in but didn't. Weary of trying to pass as middle class, she joined and now leads the two-year-old Harvard College First Generation Student Union, with an email list of 300. “This is a movement,” Ms. Barros said. “We are not ashamed of taking on this identity.” Scroll down to learn more.
"What happens when students from undereducated families matriculate at the biggest brand names in higher education? It’s complicated. The very point of enrolling at elite schools, of course, is to absorb the power and privilege that come with the degree. That’s harder for some than others, notes Anthony Abraham Jack, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Harvard who studies low-income students and their paths to college. 'Academically, all these students can do the work,' he said. 'The question becomes, ‘When do social hurdles get in the way?’ . . . "First-generation students live in a parallel universe on campus. They cannot text parents for help with paper topics or insights on choosing a major. They rarely see them. 'Every time there is a parents’ weekend it’s painful,' [a junior at Brown University] said. 'It’s another reminder mine can’t afford to be here with me on this journey.' "But more than any single challenge, first-generation students describe the pressure of something less firm to the grasp: the constant and steady weight of assumptions. 'We are at some of the wealthiest institutions in the world,' said [another Brown student] whose family relies on public assistance. 'No one expects us — people like us — to be here.'" Full story: http://nyti.ms/1GLeSrR
"Chris Reynolds will never forget his first day at the University of Michigan. He and his dad got up superearly and drove nine and a half hours from Sellersville, a blue-collar factory town in Pennsylvania, to Ann Arbor. 'My father literally just dropped me off and then left,' Reynolds says. His dad couldn't afford a hotel, so they took about an hour to unpack the car, said their goodbyes, and his dad drove off. "Chris Reynolds was officially on his own. He thought he was pretty prepared. He had a dorm room, a meal plan and a couple hundred bucks to last until he found a job. "What he wasn't prepared for was how lonely and out of place he felt on campus. People would ask questions: 'What do my parents do?' or 'Where did they go to college?' His parents didn't go to college. His mom was a housekeeper, and his dad was unemployed. . . ." Full story: http://n.pr/1EEIKkS
"ImFirst.org is an online community founded by Center for Student Opportunity (CSO) to provide first-generation college students—and those who advise them—with inspiration, information, and support on the road to and through college. There’s something special about being first. The first in flight, first man on the moon, and the first African-American president. First kisses, first impressions, first place. Being among the first in your family to attend and graduate from college is special too. It’s time we celebrate first-generation college students. ImFirst.org is collecting YouTube video stories from first-generation college graduates—and students who will be—to inspire and offer advice to the next generation of students who will be first. "Also featuring tools and resources to support aspiring first-generation college students on the road to college, ImFirst.org is the community to turn to for students who need help reaching this goal, those who have achieved it, and those who support these students along the way."
What Kids Can Do, Inc. | info@whatkidscando.org | www.whatkidscando.org
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