How Society's Decision To Attend College?

The article “Motivating Firs-Generation Students For Academic Success and College Completion” by Tanjula Petty describes the additional challenges first generation students have to overcome while attending college. A well-heeled diversity and world of opportunities are a few of the positive outcomes of attending college. According to Tanjula Petty (2014), “Yet, the most cited and widely used definition for first- generation students is someone whose parents has not completed a college degree”. Students whose parents did not acquire a college degree, have a lack of support at home. Their family members are not equipped to provide information required for college difficulties students may have. They lack knowledge and resources that students that students with college-educated parents have. The article states that these students are less psychologically prepared for college. Many low-income families do not understand the benefits of graduating from college. First generation students spend more time working and less time studying unlike their classmates. (Petty 2014) Coming from low-income families, many of these students have to divide their time between college and working. Leading students to prioritize money before school. Many work full time while going to school. Working more hours than studying can potentially harm students ' success.

Tuition and finances are among the most commonly inquired topics regarding college. Socioeconomic status, one’s social and economic position within society, directly and indirectly influences the ability to attend college. It directly relates to the financial aspect of higher education. One explanation for this is the human capital theory, which suggests a negative correlation exists between parents’ income and educational level and the amount of student loan debt their

The first determinant of one’s fate is their family’s background. Almost none of the children from low-income families made it through college. With the expenses of college today, I’m actually not surprised by that statistic. Of the children from low-income families, only 4 percent had a college degree at age 28, compared to 45 percent of the children from higher-income backgrounds. "That 's a shocking tenfold

Although neither my parents nor my older siblings have college degrees, as a child, I don't remember ever planning my future using the phrase “if I go to college.” From a very young age, it was always “when I go to college.” For me, a postsecondary education is the logical next step in my life, the missing puzzle piece to get me where I want to go. For a long time, I believed that the only reason anyone would choose not to was because they were academically or financially incapable. In “Are Too Many People Going to College?”, Charles Murray refutes this belief, examining the increasing accessibility of a college education and how our culture pushes people who may not need it to attend anyways.

Over many years college has been known as a main path to success, yet many students find themselves being first-generation college student and face many challenges that come with it, despite the efforts colleges make to remove this stigma. “Thirty percent of higher ed students today are the first in their family to attend college, while 24 percent-4.5 million- are both first generation and low income” (Opidee, 2015, P.1). These percentages are very high, with 30% of students attending college being the first in their family many students and their families don’t know what they’re getting themselves into when they get to school. Students find that being a first-generation college students affects them even before they start college.

Parents believe their kids are too young and immature to make a decision by them selves, therefore they pressure their kids into attending college believing it is the best thing for them. The author does not agree with these actions and thinks that students should decide for themselves whether or not they want to continue their education. If students feel that college is not for them, they should not stay there just because somebody expects them to. Furthermore, she states that if everyone got a higher education everybody would be on the same intellectual level, and there would be no difference in people.

Families are now aiming low when it comes to college- or are simply not going at all. Money could play a huge part in this decision- after all, the cost of college has skyrocketed over the years, and so has the amount of student loan debt. This is something even Leonhardt admits, stating that, because of this, only about 33 percent of young adults get a four-year college degree today, while another 10 percent receive a two-year degree (Leonhardt). And even though many colleges offer financial aid packages, that money may soon be cut and the cost of college will continue to grow. It is true that, in my personal experience, just because a student is awarded financial aid does not mean they have a golden ticket to University. This leaves many desperate students the only option of taking out as many loans as they think they can handle- often more than they should. Debt is not a new issue for America, but it is still a problem. Although David Autor, an M.I.T. economist, laments: “not sending [young adults] to college would be a disaster”, no one can ignore the rising rates of loan defaults, and some think it

Today in society the determination for a college degree lies beyond education towards future financial security. While college debt seems to be ever increasing, students from low-income families are less likely to attend college due to the financial hardship. The social class that a student’s family falls into shows correlation on whether that student will or not attend college (Peske & Haycock, 2006). However, looking at this issue from my own prospective it seems as though no matter the social class students are attending college. What more so seems to have an affect on outcomes for individuals is how there family’s social economic status effects how well a student performs in college. For a student from a low-income family nothing can seem more daunting than the overwhelming amount of debt we have to pay after college.

For many families, the idea that higher education for themselves or their children will automatically improve their social or economic status is a common one. In many situations this can be the case, however it is not universal. Additionally, many factors come into play when analyzing how intergenerational mobility does or does not occur. Some of these factors include existing social class, field of study, undergraduate vs. advanced degrees, race or gender, selection of institution, and parental resources. The general hypothesis of this study is “Is a College Degree Still the Great Equalizer?”

Students from all over the United States are told all through their life that they need to attend college if they ever want to be successful, however, this is far from the truth. Often schools are culprits for driving students to attend money driven colleges, in other cases it is family. While schools all too often make the push on students to continue their schooling, parents can cause the same situation, as they may not have a degree and be working a low-paying factory job. Now kids already don’t want to be like their parents when they get older, so seeing them suffer in poverty or barely above the poverty line can cause some dissatisfaction, further seeking a degree to live a life that they never got. What many

First Generation students are students who are the first in their family to go to college. These students come from a variety of backgrounds. They can come from low-income families who previously didn’t have the means to attend college, they can come from families that never encouraged college or thought of it as an option and focused more on manual labor as a career, and they can come from families who’ve been stuck in the cycle of poverty and are trying to make their way out through attending college. These are just a few examples of the background of first generation students.

Thus, in most cases, the cycle within the family is repeated and the first generation children to go to college are still unsuccessful due to the lack of support from parents who are considered to be a minority within their

Using Logit and Linear regression, we attempted to understand factors that influence students to leave their college or University, their average GPA, and graduating in four years. We tailor our study to first-generation students, in relation to PoC students. Because much of the differences in college success have been linked to social class and economic background we have controlled for family income, as well as race, level of cultural capital and student’s use of university services. Our analysis of the dependent variables for student success; students decision to leave, average GPA and four year graduation, reveal that first-generation status is a significant factor in all three. Other variables frequently emphasized in education literature on student success and first-generation status, such as cultural capital and peer support had less of an impact than indicated in previous research. We analyze each dependent variable separately for independent variables in Wave 2, Wave 3, and Wave 4. And then look for relational differences in the impact of independent variables both between dependent variables and over different waves of the study. We present findings in which the relationship our dependent variables to independent variables are significant to the 0.5 level of confidence. Independent variables in our study had different effects on our dependent variables, with some positive correlations and some negative. Finding presented below start with those affecting students

A vast amount of students are attending college, either a community college or a four-year college, making it possible for them to prosper. A lot of first-generation students are seen across college campuses; I am one of those students. Student aid such as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid makes it possible for students from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds afford college. Parents and the students do not have to deal with the burden of trying to pay for the full cost of attendance of college. For this reason, “... college enrollment has been rising since 2007 as well” (Tushnet 354). Students going to college get to choose their field of study. By giving them this ability, they have more motivation to seek success and work hard towards their goal. As a first-generation student, my American Dream is to graduate from college with a bachelor’s

Being the first to do or achieve anything considered positive is usually welcomed with respect and honor. The first man to walk on the Moon, the first to summit Everest, even the first animal to orbit outer space, they all have their names sealed in history. Even in less ambitious intents, the case is also similar: we crown the first ranked student of a graduating class, the first to cross the 100 meters line, and more. It is therefore only intuitive to suspect a similar reaction from the parents whose child decides for the first time in the history of their family to pursue a college degree. However, that is sadly not the case. While many people have the preconception that parents of first-generation college students (FGCS) are a positive motivator in the student’s persistence through college, parents of first-generation students are instead, in many cases, not understanding nor supportive of the student’s decision to attend college.