Defining first-generation is harder than you think

A growing body of research suggests that first-generation students face a unique set of challenges when it comes to applying to, enrolling in and persisting through college. Students who are the first in their families to attend college are often more likely to lack support and guidance during the application process. Perhaps, as a result, they are more likely to graduate at lower rates than their peers. The increasing attention to the challenges faced by first-generation students has fuelled a growing, and important, set of policies and initiatives in the US aimed at supporting them during their higher education journeys.

Given the abundance of studies and policies designed around this student population, it would stand to reason that everyone in the US has a shared understanding of what first-generation actually means and who these students are. But that’s unfortunately not the case.

Despite growing awareness of the unique circumstances that first-generation students face, there remain significant variations between how the term is defined, including between federal and state governments and colleges themselves. And those differences continue to impact how first-generation students are (or are not) supported in the college admissions, enrolment and retention processes.

In a set of new reports from Common App, we found that seemingly small definitional changes can cause major differences in whether students are considered first-generation. For instance, not every school sets their degree attainment threshold at the same place. Are you a first-generation student if a parent attended college but didn’t earn a degree? What if they earned an associate degree, but not a bachelor’s? A sizeable share of students in the study – almost 11 per cent (or roughly 127,000) of all US domestic college applicants on our platform in the 2022 season – switched out of first-generation status depending on where the degree attainment threshold was set (whether that was at some college, associate degree or bachelor’s degree). Beyond the level of degree, there are also questions such as whether degrees obtained from non-US institutions should be considered if we’re focusing on family experience in the US higher education context.

In addition to the lack of clarity around which degrees are relevant, there also isn’t widespread agreement about whose degrees matter. Nearly a third of students report not living with both of their biological parents, so are both parents’ degrees relevant for thinking about their first-generation status? What about other adults in their household, such as step-parents, or the college experiences of older siblings? Additionally, more than one in 10 applicants indicated limited or no information available for one of their parents, making it challenging for institutions to make any informed determination about first-generation status in the first place.

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The implications of these seemingly small shifts are, in the aggregate, fairly striking. Depending on the definitions used for first-generation status, the number of domestic first-generation applicants on the Common App in 2022 could be anywhere from 304,338 to as high as 709,850. Put another way, using a different definition for this seemingly straightforward concept can more than double the size of the student population considered first-generation.

Of course, a distinction that dramatic has significant impacts not just on first-generation students themselves but the entire college-going population. Consider that according to one definition, less than half of first-generation students are eligible for a Common App fee waiver (our proxy for low-income status), while just over two-thirds would be eligible under another definition. Does that mean that a large minority, or a substantial majority, of first-generation students come from low-income households? Without a shared definition, it’s hard to know — and, as a result, it’s hard to put protocols and processes in place to provide these students with the right kind and cadence of support.

Addressing this challenge isn’t likely to be as simple as coming up with a single shared definition that everyone agrees on. Colleges have their own reasons for using various definitions of first-generation, often rooted in the experiences of their own unique student populations, specific contexts and programme goals. And while a universal definition may take hold thanks to the work of organisations such as NASPA’s Center for First-Generation Student Success, it may not do so in time to support the many thousands of first-generation students (no matter how you define them) who are navigating the higher education system today.

The first step towards providing better support for first-generation students, then, should be to acknowledge the variety of definitions that exist and develop a better shared understanding of how those definitions affect students across the country. The disparities uncovered in this recent research reflect, to put it bluntly, living proof that words matter. The lives and experiences of hundreds of thousands of students can change based on the way a term is defined. Understanding that problem isn’t enough to solve it. But it’s a critical starting point if higher education institutions, policymakers and others involved want to identify the best way to serve a growing population of students that, no matter how you slice it, faces persistent barriers to access and opportunity in higher education.

Brian Heseung Kim is director of data science at Common App.

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