Is There a Link Between Hispanics and First-Generation College Students? The Importance of Exposure to a College-Going Tradition

Abstract

It is well documented that Hispanics have some of the lowest earnings and highest poverty rates of any group in the US. Increasing their college graduation rate is perhaps the most obvious way to foster and accelerate the pace of their economic mobility. At the same time, this is a very challenging public policy goal, partly because such a small percentage of Hispanics presently have a 4-year college degree. Currently, 13% of all Hispanics 25 years and older have graduated from college, compared to 33% of non-Hispanic whites. Not only is scale an issue, but policies must also overcome the paradox that college graduates generally come from college-educated households. According to this view, “first-generation” college students—the first in their family to go to college—are different from their socioeconomic and college-going peers in a multitude of ways and will, therefore, have differential educational outcomes. The descriptive analysis in this chapter reveals that first-generation college students of all ethnic backgrounds have lower 4-year completion rates and are also more likely to enroll in community colleges than in 4-year colleges. Such findings are not surprising considering that a multitude of family background factors, such as the emphasis given to learning, have a strong, but difficult to measure, impact on educational outcomes. The analysis shows that Hispanic college students stand out as being primarily first-generation college students—65% of all Hispanics—even when compared to blacks (50%). The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the programs designed to overcome the challenges facing first-generation college students, and hence the issues that simultaneously affect Hispanic college students.