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

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 First Generation Experienceis the only college success book written specificallyto serve first generation students. It is forstudents who need a little extra attention and support to have a firm footing in the academic world. It is about helping those students who have felt disenfranchised, disengaged, and disappointed by the educational system to empower themselves with the knowledge and the skills necessary to imagine and realize and new future. It is also a book about change, specifically transformation. The word itself has multiple meanings in different academic disciplines, but the idea of transformation most closely applies to the intentional process by which we help students change as individuals, as scholars, and as citizens of their communities. "

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.

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.

First-generation Professionals in Higher Education: Strategies for the World of Work explores complexities related to the transition from college/professional school to the work world of higher education, as well as the advancement from mid- to senior-level leadership, and how first-generation professionals navigate these transitions. Framing their chapters in the asset-based lens of cultural capital, the authors approach topics of navigating the field of higher education as first-generation professionals through personal experience as well as evidence-based approaches and strategies. Organized in three sections--Professional Identity, Purposeful Interaction, and Career Path--the book examines concepts such as imposter syndrome, politics, financial literacy, resilience, networking, mentoring, career progression, and more. Each chapter includes activities, exercises, and questions for reflection, offering readers an opportunity to discern strategies for their own professional development.

An NPR Favorite Book of the Year “Breaks new ground on social and educational questions of great import.” —Washington Post “An essential work, humane and candid, that challenges and expands our understanding of the lives of contemporary college students.” —Paul Tough, author of Helping Children Succeed “Eye-opening...Brings home the pain and reality of on-campus poverty and puts the blame squarely on elite institutions.” —Washington Post “Jack’s investigation redirects attention from the matter of access to the matter of inclusion...His book challenges universities to support the diversity they indulge in advertising.” —New Yorker The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors—and their coffers—to support a more diverse student body. But is it enough just to admit these students? In this bracing exposé, Anthony Jack shows that many students’ struggles continue long after they’ve settled in their dorms. Admission, they quickly learn, is not the same as acceptance. This powerfully argued book documents how university policies and campus culture can exacerbate preexisting inequalities and reveals why some students are harder hit than others.

The inspiring, true coming-of-age story of a ferociously determined young man who, armed only with his intellect and his willpower, fights his way out of despair. In 1993, Cedric Jennings was a bright and ferociously determined honor student at Ballou, a high school in one of Washington D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods, where the dropout rate was well into double digits and just 80 students out of more than 1,350 boasted an average of B or better. At Ballou, Cedric had almost no friends. He ate lunch in a classroom most days, plowing through the extra work he asked for, knowing that he was really competing with kids from other, harder schools. Cedric Jennings’s driving ambition—which was fully supported by his forceful mother—was to attend a top college. In September 1995, after years of near superhuman dedication, he realized that ambition when he began as a freshman at Brown University. But he didn't leave his struggles behind. He found himself unprepared for college: he struggled to master classwork and fit in with the white upper-class students. Having traveled too far to turn back, Cedric was left to rely on his intelligence and his determination to maintain hope in the unseen—a future of acceptance and reward. In this updated edition, A Hope in the Unseen chronicles Cedric’s odyssey during his last two years of high school, follows him through his difficult first year at Brown, and tells the story of his subsequent successes in college and the world of work. Eye-opening, sometimes humorous, and often deeply moving, A Hope in the Unseen weaves a crucial new thread into the rich and ongoing narrative of the American experience.

First-Generation College Student Research Studies brings together research from a group of dynamic scholars from a variety of institutions across the United States. This extraordinary edited volume examines the first-generation college student population and analyzes topics such as college choice, social experiences, dual credit on academic success, lifestyles and health status, and professional identity/teaching practices. The empirical studies in this book contribute greatly to the research literature regarding the role that educational leaders have in educating first-generation college students.

Despite their numbers, Latinos continue to lack full and equal participation in all facets of American life, including education. This book provides a critical discussion of the role that select K–12 educational policies have and continue to play in failing Latino students. The author draws upon institutional, national, and statewide data sets, as well as interviews among students, teachers, and college administrators, to explore the role that public policies play in educating Latino students. The book concludes with specific recommendations that aim to raise achievement, college transition rates, and success among Latino students across the preschool through college continuum. Chapters cover high dropout rates, access to college-preparation resources, testing and accountability, financial aid, the Dream Act, and affirmative action.