First Generation Student Resources

Equipped with the right knowledge and tools, professors can help first-generation students succeed.

Efforts by colleges and universities to strengthen and personalize supports for first-generation students largely get noticed. A survey reveals areas for expanded communication and connection opportunities.

It Starts with Demystifying the College Experience

Bewilderment about how to navigate the college experience hits first-generation students harder than it does others. Such students face significant financial, cultural, and educational barriers. Yet they enroll in college in significant numbers, with about a quarter of new freshmen reporting that their parents had no postsecondary education. The 10 articles in this collection from the Chronicle of Higher Education examine colleges’ strategies for helping those students adjust and excel.

For many first-generation college students, traditional academic culture and structures can create barriers to their engagement on campus and academic success. To ensure that academic libraries are not also presenting unnecessary challenges to these students, first-generation needs and expectations should be important considerations in library service and facility design initiatives. Drawing on a multidisciplinary literature review and a survey of high school counselors’ experiences advising first-generation students, the current study identifies common needs and challenges of first-generation students and provides correlated recommendations for how libraries can best equip themselves to meet those needs.