Prospective first-generation college students cite high educational aspirations as 10th graders, but take longer to enroll in college and are less likely than their peers to earn a degree.
Those findings are included in a new research brief from the US Department of Education’s Institute of Educational Sciences. The report uses 10 years of data collected from a nationally representative sample of students who were high school sophomores in 2002.
After a decade, only 20 percent of first-generation students had obtained a bachelor’s degree, compared with 42 percent of continuing generation college students — a term researchers used to describe students with at least one parent who had attended college.
Among first-generation students who did not complete a degree, 54 percent cited financial concerns as a factor in their decision to leave school.
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