“You Never Become Fully Independent”: Family Roles and Independence in First-Generation College Students

First-Generation College Students: The Influence of Family on College Experience

According to Bradbury and Mather (2009), in the 2003-2004 academic school year 45% of new students enrolling in four-year institutions were first-generation students. When compared to continuing-generation college students, first-generation students have been shown to find the college going experience to be more stressful (Phinney & Haas, 2003). Despite the knowledge that these students find th...

Movin' on up (to college): First-generation college students' experiences with family achievement guilt.

As the first in their families to attend college, first-generation college students (FGCs) experience a discrepancy between the opportunities available to them and those available to their non-college-educated family members that elicits family achievement guilt. The present studies examined family achievement guilt among an ethnically diverse sample of FGCs and continuing-generation college st...

Roles of Gender, Race, and SES in the College Choice Process Among First-Generation and Nonfirst-Generation Students

The authors examined students’ reports of their college choice process to understand the influence of a set of psychological, personal, and institutional factors. The authors also examined potential moderating influences of generational status, gender, race, and SES on our variables of interest. A diverse sample of college freshmen (N 1,339), including 42% who were the first in their families t...

Postsecondary Access and Success for First-Generation College Students

Introduction A college education is considered the key to achieving economic success and social mobility in American society. Higher levels of educational attainment are related to higher incomes and lower rates of unemployment, and the earnings gap between high school and college graduates only widens over time. While access to higher education has expanded dramatically in recent years, studen...

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