First-generation students and scholars struggle

There has been increasing recognition of the struggles that first-generation students face in going to college. With 40% of overall college applicants being first-generation, the pattern of their applying to less selective institutions and being less successful in completing their degrees signals their unique life experiences and challenges. Care should be exercised to avoid over-generalization about the challenges they face because first-generation status varies a lot. One factor in particular, socio-economic differences, heavily impacts their success. The push for institutions to attract first-generation prospects needs to incorporate an understanding of the essential experiential and character differences that first-generation students bring with them.

Two of the primary issues with first-generation students are the reluctance to identify oneself as first-generation and not feeling comfortable in asking for help. There are ways to address both of these core issues and the nine areas recommended by Melissa Ezarik are an excellent place to start. How first-generation students are perceived must be examined and professors need training on how to be of help in addressing the unique needs of this population.

The National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) and the Suder Foundation initiated the "First-Gen Forward" project to increase the focus on success within this group and to recognize institutions committed to this goal. Among the greatest barriers to first-generation students is knowing about, and using, campus resources of which three have been suggested as most critical - the library, faculty office hours, and student life offices. Providing helpful online and in-person resources can also make a difference.

Past experience and socialization provide middle class students unmistakeable advantage that must be counterbalanced by educators understanding and addressing why struggling students don't seek help. A critical tool to engage with faculty is assertiveness to surmount the hurdle of busy or indifferent faculty. The deference that many first-generation, minoritized, and other students of lesser financial means have learned is a more significant impediment to this access than most recognize. Beyond assertiveness, and perhaps contributing to its power, is cognitive bias. "How cognitive bias hinders student success" by Steve Mintz identified several forms of cognitive bias that can result in underserved students remaining on the margin. One that particularly rung bells was the "Dunning-Kruger effect -- the tendency of novices to overestimate their mastery of a particular concept or skill." The issue is the hesitancy that a student might feel, coupled with a sense of either "I can handle this" or "Nobody will be willing to help," which result in no action.

A Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Education at UPenn found that first-generation "students generally struggle in meeting academic standards, gaining a sense of belonging and acquiring the skills necessary for life both during and after college." One way to overcome these barriers is for faculty to see the possibility within, embracing the idea that "teaching students to believe in themselves, even when no one else has." The elitism inherent to higher education results in anyone coming from a different background feeling that they are imposters, and a minoritized person feels this even more deeply. Resilience in one of the things that helps all students succeed in challenging times; it's even more important for first-generation and minoritized students. Middle and high school teachers can introduce ideas about higher education as a way to overcome the experiential gaps for first-generation students and engaging with parents and families also helps.

In addition to undergraduate students, first-generation graduate students and scholars face barriers as well. Being first-generation doesn't go away when students become graduate students who become faculty or staff in higher education; at each level first-generation background means that they "don't know what they don't know." Kelly Craig, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Utah, expressed that the resilience that first-generation graduate students bring to their studies and work is typically unrecognized. Matthew Jerome Schneider, an assistant professor at UNC-Pembroke, described the awkwardness of being asked to comment on his research agenda in a new graduate student welcome session, a task that his fellow graduate students seemed to understand all to well and were enthusiastic to answer.

In one of the most pointed essays I've read about the plight of women and minority academics, Elena Miranda, identified specific behaviors that thwart their advancement. Miranda includes steering down, softening ambitions, and requiring overt servitude among the dynamics of the "leaking pipeline" that must be addressed if progress is to be made.

For students and for aspiring and advancing scholars, first-generation naiveté is often an unrecognized barrier. Those who have not come from first-generation experiences do not understand the privilege that they bring to academic circles where there are many unwritten rules, customs, and expectations. These privileges do not all of a sudden disappear once the doctoral degree is granted or an academic assignment is secured. Seasoned academics know about the importance of networks, riding the coattails of significant leaders in the field, and publishing in the journals that result in the greatest number of citations of one's work. Recognizing the barriers and supporting graduate students can be addressed with accessibility and transparency as the primary objectives. "Navigating peer relationships in an unfamiliar academic environment, building the confidence to self-advocate and gain what each person needs from their own training experience, and normalizing use of resources on campus" must be addressed in order to counter first-generation students' naiveté and/or sense of belonging.

The disadvantages of first-generation naiveté impact all those who seek to advance in the academic world. For those whose cross-sectional identities include other barriers such as sex, race, language, or other difference, striving to enter and excel in academic circles is even harder. If higher education seeks to be more representative of the population at large, these disadvantages have to be highlighted and addressed.