Influence Of Parental Involvement On First Generation College Students

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.

Over the past years, most studies on the educational success of a child have focused on the factors that are within the control of the child. They are factors that are directly caused by the child himself such as the level of motivation, discipline level, hard work and the company he keeps. Only a few researchers have focused on the role parents play in the determination of the success that children have in academics. Despite their role being obscure in the scholarly work, it is evident that the involvement of parents in a child’s education plays a significant in determining whether a child will succeed or not. While most scholars argue that a child’s education success is dependent on the level of hard work he or she puts in class, recent studies by different scholars point that a parent’s involvement in school plays a significant part in the education success of their children.

Throughout my teenage years, I was the embodiment of the average introvert. The pressure to succeed and become a first generation college student in my family was overwhelming, and the constant battle of not being good enough defeated me. My parents only spoke Spanish, and were unable to help me with my school assignments. As I struggled with my academics silently, my self-consciousness and insecurities grew. The fear of speaking out in public was a lingering shadow that developed more, as I grew older. Being that English was my second language, I had always felt inferior to those who spoke English as their primary language.

Karla Carney-Hall writes a scholarly article to explain current trends in family involvement. Carney-Hall uses a collection of previous research results to acknowledge that “The college admission and financial aid process encourages (and sometimes requires) parent participation” (4). If parental involvement was not going to be beneficial for the students, hopefully colleges would not require them to be involved as much as they do. Another thing that Carney-Hall brings to the reader's attention is that many college students unexpectedly identify their parents as being the most influential people in their lives (5), which could ideally help them to have a support system as they go from high school to college. Elements of Terri LeMoyne and Tom Buchanan’s study contradict the viewpoint that helicopter parenting can be beneficial for the student’s transition into college. LeMoyne and Buchanan bring up the rather recent concept that “...college and university officials... have become so concerned about the supposed negative consequences of ‘hovering’ that they have funneled both money and staff into programs to handle these parents” (400). Taking their knowledge into consideration, it can be concluded that colleges

Noel, A., Stark, P., Redford, J. (2013). Parent and Family Involvement in Education, From the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2012 (NCES 2013-028), National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch.

1. Being the first-generation college bound student in my family means a lot to me. I hope to inspire my sister to attend and strive in college. This also brings a lot of stress on me because if I don’t accomplish this it could change the outcome in my sisters’ future education. With college comes debt, coming from a low-income background it is hard to see myself actually attending college. There is always a way to pay for college as an alternative and usually, it is scholarships. This something I hope to learn more about during the L.I.F.E. Program at CSU this summer.

“Kids who are the first in their families to brave the world of higher education come on campus with little academic know-how and are much more likely than their peers to drop out before graduation” (1). Many people believe that school isn’t for everyone, and whoever goes is privileged for doing so. Countless people in the world today do not attend college, and this is mainly due to an influence of those in their family. Perhaps they are unsupportive of higher education, their parents and family members may view their entry into college as a break in the family system rather than a continuation of their schooling and higher learning. Most of the first-generation students decide to apply to colleges, because they aspire to jobs which require degrees. However, unlike some students whose parents have earned a degree, they often seek out college to bring honor to their families, and to ensure they make a decent amount of money for their future.

As consistently illustrated in the literature, family support and education as a family value have been positively related to students’ persistence to graduation (Hrabowski, Maton, & Greif, 1998; Moore, 2000; Taylor, Hinton, & Wilson, 1995). Family members can provide guidance, encouragement, and reassurance about college challenges and the student’s potential for success. Hrabowski and Maton (1995) established that parents and other family members were instrumental in helping African American students adjust to college life at a predominantly White institution.

We are placed in situations everyday where there is barely enough time to blink before making a choice, much less ask ourselves four very important questions. Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned? It takes approximately eight seconds to ask these four questions; we don’t always get eight seconds to make a choice. It is important to be able to make wise choices without having to always ask yourself if it’s the right choice.

One faculty respondent said, “I have had students who want to learn but can’t afford bus fare to get to school. When they don’t have a computer, can’t afford Internet access, and it takes them two hours to get to school on the bus, what are they supposed to do?” A support system is necessary to succeed in college, and “support from family” could be an important resource. This category is closely related to life issues.”

Low income parents struggle to make their children know that a college education is important. Most low income families have a difficult time of paying bills and providing for their children. With a student going off to college, and not gaining a job that helps provide for the family, the parents will make the students feel guilty for not helping their family in a time of need. A Harvard education professor wrote a journal about the difficulties of low income students going off to college. In the journal she utilizes the students personal financial situation and how the students feel obligated to provide for the family. (Cox, 2016). The parents can also influence the students to believe that college is not important. Low income students will feel that college is unnecessary without their parents encouraging them to take beneficial actions to prepare for college. Parents rarely talk about preparing for the SAT, talking with school personnel about college, or encouraging extracurricular activities (Hochschild, 2003). Without the influence of parents low income students will not feel obligated to pursue a higher education, and instead feel as though they should help lessen their family financial

Research shows that ever though students are in a more independent stage, the importance of parental attachment never disappears (Fass, 2002). Parental support of their children encourage academic performance, scholarly persistence, and college graduation (Fass, 2002). As high levels of attachments or bonding may have positive effects, there are negative effects connected to the absence of such attachment. Negative effects of little to no parental attachment include the possibility of ill performance (Fass, 2002). Low attachment can put students are risk for academic failure (Fass, 2002). Students may also have a hard time adjusting to the college environment and expectations, without the existence of emotional bonding between themselves and

However, the study indicated that first-term academic performance had the strongest relationship to retention, followed by student receipt of financial aid. As a result of that study, Hoyt (1999) emphasized the need for interventions that focus on the academic needs of students and for strengthening financial aid programs, particularly for high-risk students. Hennessy (1990) found that students who successfully completed a reading improvement course were more likely to be successful in college classes. Hennessy speculated two possible causes for their success. One possible factor was that participation in the reading course led to student success, or the second possibility that Hennessy (1990) raises is that those “who heeded their counselor’s advice to enroll in a reading course may have had different goals, attitudes, or motivation than students in other groups” (p. 117). In other words, individual student characteristics upon entry into college may have contributed to student success. College Student Characteristics and Behaviors

In recent years, it is now customary for professionals who work in higher education to have interesting stories about their interactions with parents. In Lynette S. Merriman’s book, Best Practices for Managing Parent Concerns: A Mixed Methods Study of Student Affairs Practice at Doctoral Research Institutions, she uses the 2006 national survey of student affairs professionals to discover that 93% of respondents recorded that their interactions with parents had increased in the most recent five years of research (105; ch. 7). Not only have higher education professionals seen increased parental interactions with administrators, but also with students. In 2007, the organization College Parents of America surveyed parents and found that 34% of respondents reported that they communicated with their children either daily, or more than once a day (“National Parent Survey”). Increased parental involvement is driving colleges and universities to examine the advantages and disadvantages of having parents as a more significant influence on collegiate processes.

As some may think that the over protective parent gets a sense of fulfillment out of being there for their child this is not always the case. However, when parents feel that they are providing the amount of support to their children they think they deserve is when the parents feel happy and get satisfaction out of it. Within the article by Fingerman, the students’ perception of the intense involvement linked to better satisfaction within their life because they were able to do more things and enjoy college instead of stress about big decisions and even finances. This may only be associated with the financial support and perhaps, the students would report other forms of intense support to be overwhelming and stressful. Even though, the reported sense of fulfillment some students feel when their parents financially support them, a great deal of research focuses on the negative outcomes that are associated with over involvement or types of control (Padilla-Walker et al., 2012). It seems that there needs to be an established healthy balance of support. Being overly supportive can be beneficial in some aspects, but it can also hinder the developing person establish independence