This book focuses on first-generation graduate students in the US and the graduate or post-baccalaureate programs that house and educate these students. The several voices in this book, including first-generation graduate students, address the phenomena of graduate students’ experiences and related university practices, with the practices connected to traditional academic and Western values and to academic and neoliberal institutional logics. First-generation graduate students’ narratives, or testimonies, serve as the foundation of the analysis of students’ pathways to graduate school and their experiences within graduate school. The conditions for first-generation graduate students in their programs require remedies that will facilitate student well-being, peer community attachment, and persistence, and will educate and train students for achievement in graduate school and for employment after graduate school.

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 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.

Why is college completion so closely linked to social class? In The Journey Before Us, Laura Nichols looks at the experiences of aspiring first-generation college students from middle-school to young adulthood and shows what must change in order to improve college pathways and graduate more students.

From the Editor The population of first-generation college students (FGS) is increasing in an ever-tightening economy, a time when employers demand a college degree even for an initial interview. According to a 2007 study by UCLA?s Higher Education Research Institute, nearly one in six freshmen at American four-year institutions is firstgeneration. However, FGS often straddle different cultures between school and home, and many feel socially, ethnically, academically, and emotionally marginalized on campus. Because of these disparities, FGS frequently encounter barriers to academic success and require additional campus support resources. Some institutions offer increased financial aid and loan-free aid packages to FGS, but these remedies?although welcome?do not fully address the diverse and complex challenges that these students experience. Responding to these complexities, this volume?s chapters extend previous research by examining the multiple transitions experienced by both undergraduate and graduate FGS. This volume?s cuttingedge research will help college and university administrators, faculty, and staff work better with FGS through more effective pedagogy and institutional programs. Ultimately, this volume affirms how learning communities are strengthened when they include diverse student populations such as FGS and meet their particular emotional, academic, and financial needs.

Clearing the Path for First-Generation College Students comprises a wide range of studies that explore the multidimensional social processes and meanings germane to the experiences of first-generation college students before and during their matriculation into institutions of higher education. The chapters offer timely, empirical examinations of the ways that these students negotiate experiences shaped by structural inequities in higher education institutions and the pathways that lead to them. This volume provides insight into the dilemmas that arise from the transformation of students’ class identities in pursuit of upward mobility, as well as their quest for community and a sense of “belonging” on college campuses that have not been historically designed for them. While centering first-generation status, this collection also critically engages the ways in which other dimensions of social identity intersect to inform students’ educational experiences in relation to dynamics of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender, and immigration. Additionally, this book takes a holistic approach by exploring the ways in which first-generation college students are influenced by, and engage with, their families and communities of origin as they undertake their educational careers.