Education Commons^™

First-Generation Students: How This Subculture Chooses Their Higher Education Institution, Claire I. Kerr

ATU Research Symposium

First-generation students are a unique type of student. Both complicated and misunderstood, this subculture provides an increasing challenge for student affairs professionals. Nearly 25% of the overall undergraduate population is first-generation, with first-generation being defined as students without parents who went to college (Engle & Tinto, 2008). There is little research on how or why first-generation students choose their higher education institution. Understanding first-generation students and how they choose their higher education institution is important as the population of first-generation students is rising, thus creating a need for understanding this for recruitment professionals at institutions. The first research question was …