Transforming the First-Generation College Student Experience

To help first-generation college Georgetown Eases the Transition with the Thrive Guide students sort through the flurry of communication they receive and the “to do” list they must accomplish, as they prepare to arrive on campus, Georgetown University developed a “Thrive Guide.” It is essentially a “CliffsNotes” for all the other university communication the students receive.

Tailored to first-generation college students, it addresses topics and questions that a student’s parents might not be able to help their student with if they did not go to college. While resources like this could certainly serve a large number of students, what differentiates this effort from a traditional checklist or “getting started” document, is that they consulted first-generation college students in developing it, asking them what they wish they’d known before arriving on campus.

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Even with an effective and targeted arrival guide, students will have to interact with and get information from other sources, including the course registration system and institutional webpages, which are often filled with inaccessible words and higher education jargon. Consider how unfamiliar some of the words on this page would be to someone with no experience in higher education. Not only does this make completing tasks confusing and more difficult, but also reinforces some of those feelings of not belonging that often hinder first-generation college students’ transition.

A study of community college websites found that 70% of students were confused by higher education terms on institutional websites. While this study focused on community college students, the results would likely be similar, if replicated at four-year institutions. Institutions need to recognize there will be a learning curve for first-generation college students as they acclimate to their institutions. One step toward accomplishing that is to make the language used in initial interactions less confusing, so these students will be more likely to persist.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill went through a “translation exercise” for some of their most accessed campus resources for incoming students. They used the Gunning Fog Index (GFI) to evaluate their communications. The GFI is an online tool into which one enters text, that then generates a score indicating the reading level necessary to comprehend that text.

The financial aid text that UNC entered, generated a score indicating that someone would need a partial college education in order to comprehend the text. After rewriting it with guidelines provided by Gunning Fog, their new description was classified as “widely accessible.”

As a general frame of reference, Gunning Fog recommends a score of 12 or less for text that is intended for a wide audience and less than eight to be near universal. To the right are recommendations for creating more accessible text. These steps are especially helpful for colleges who serve a number of students from families with no post-secondary education and non-native English-speaking families.

Creating more accessible text:

1. Bring down words per sentence
2. Minimize complex words
3. Reduce proper nouns and familiar jargon

EAB recommends doing a jargon reduction and readability audit of the materials that incoming students must use. We have developed two tools–available now–to guide you through this process. The first is a higher education terminology translation exercise, which helps identify language commonly used in new student onboarding materials. It includes an activity to create student-friendly translations of technical jargon and prompts users to review language using the Gunning Fog Index. The second is a higher education jargon reduction exercise, which helps prioritize materials for translation.

Higher ed terminology translation exercise

• Worksheet identifies language commonly used in new student onboarding materials
• Designed as a group or individual activity to create student-friendly translations of technical jargon
• Prompts review of language and consideration of GFI score

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Higher ed jargon reduction exercise

• Audit exercise for staff to make the college website, newsletter, and other written materials more accessible to students and families
• Prompts brainstorming of materials that drive in-person traffic
• Recommends coordination with IT department to identify high-traffic webpages

Access the Tool

While the initial transition to Students Face Barriers in Accessing Campus Resources campus poses some of the greatest challenges to incoming first-generation college students, a lack of familiarity and comfort with our institutions continue once students arrive on campus.

Institutions share a lot of information with students at orientation, over email, and through residential life, among other channels, but there are still a lot of places for students to get confused on campus. Students may struggle with procedural issues, like how to drop a class, or with accessing resources, such as tutoring or counseling. It can be very confusing to know where to go to get questions answered, especially when it sometimes takes two to three steps to get a complete resolution.

To help simplify campus navigation, Eastern Kentucky University, developed the EKU GURUs program—a centralized, accessible resource to triage any student question or concern.

Thirty-five students are hired and trained as GURUs each year. They work out of three on-campus locations and collectively offer tutoring in over 30 subject areas. Each student specializes in two to three subjects, in addition to supporting students with study skills like time management.

Each GURU also serves as a liaison to two student services units and one academic area. They meet biweekly with senior representatives from each department to collect information. They use that information to update a central wiki page, so that any GURU can view the updates and answer any student question.

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• Selecting a major
• Managing student-roommate conflicts
• Preparing for college-level work

• Encouraging your student to take advantage of faculty office hours
• Resources available for health and wellness
• Managing communication with children when they return home

Common student affinity groups

• Historically underrepresented minorities
• International students
• Student athletes
• Veteran students

First-generation students a heterogeneous group

• White female whose parents have associates degrees
• African American male, first in his family to go to any college
• Hispanic scholarship student from elite high school

In the past, many institutions have hesitated to directly address first-generation college student status, to avoid stigmatizing students. However recently, these students have become more vocal in asking for recognition and support on campus.

At the inaugural 1vyG conference, students were asked to describe first-generation college students in one word. The resulting word cloud, pictured to the right, was filled almost entirely with positive associations. It serves as a good representation of how first-generation college students feel about their identity; they are very proud of their accomplishments and what they have overcome.

First-generation students are now asking for recognition on campus and a chance to come together and be part of a community of support. So institutions must ask themselves how they can proactively identify and address some of the issues movements like 1vyG raise and how they can provide some of the key benefits to students that these groups provide, such as access to relatable peers, normalization of experiences, and positive identity reinforcement.

UNC Chapel Hill wanted to create a welcoming environment for their first-generation college students. It was important to them that students know that there was a community waiting for them, well before they arrived on campus. They developed a proactive outreach campaign that sends messages to students the summer before the arrive. Messages focus on the strengths and value that they bring to the institution.

Throughout the summer, a staff member sends emails to students on the list, welcoming them to the university and introducing key resources and support networks. They also send these students reminders about important deadlines.

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As a next step to identity recognition and broad positive messaging, first-generation college students need tangible examples of success that they feel they can relate to, in order to normalize their own experiences. This is the goal of the “I Relate” campaign at San Jose State University.

The staff at San Jose State University recruited students, faculty, staff, and alumni to share their own experiences as first-generation college students. Each participant recorded a video featuring their own accounts of the challenges they’ve faced as first-generation college students, as well as the resources and support systems they used to address them.

The videos are shared with students on campus largely through social media. Stories are collected and shared on an ongoing basis with a few new videos released each month. The individuals featured in the videos are prompted to talk specifically about how they’ve felt at different times throughout their college experience, resources they accessed to overcome obstacles, and how they have ultimately been successful. The individual videos were compiled into a 30-minute video of powerful testimonials and messages of support.

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The University of Rochester launched a campus-wide campaign to show first-generation college students that there is a large, visible network on campus that is there to help them. The goal of the first ONE Campus Campaign is to make faculty and staff across campus more approachable, thus encouraging help-seeking among first-generation college students. Rochester developed a logo for the campaign and sent outreach to the entire campus community, inviting them to participate by displaying a sticker or decal featuring the logo on their office door to show their support for first-generation college students. Students are made aware of the meaning of the campaign and logo through multiple channels, including campus newsletters, a series of email blasts, and social media.

Rochester received a great initial response to their outreach, with 1,000 faculty and staff members requesting decals in the pilot year of the campaign. The offices represented included admissions, advising services, graduate studies, residential life, academic departments, and others. Everyone who responded also received an informational one-pager about supporting first-generation college students.

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Just because first-generation college students may not engage with the university the way we usually expect students to, doesn’t meant that they are not engaging in valuable developmental opportunities and gaining relevant skills.

For example, while a “traditional” student might hold an on-campus job, a first-generation college student is more likely to work off-campus. Both jobs, however, provide professional development and work experience. Similarly, while a “traditional” student may serve as a peer mentor at your university, a first-generation college student may mentor at their local YMCA. Often, these activities are not recognized on campus.

While there are specific benefits to being engaged on campus, it is important to acknowledge the work students are doing off campus as well, and help them see their involvement as a part of their development and higher education.

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In an effort to increase on-campus engagement among its low-income and first-generation college student population, Ball State University developed the “Achievements” mobile app to facilitate, encourage, and reward students for getting involved on campus. Looking at both national research on retention and the university’s internal data, Ball State found that students who engaged on campus were more likely to complete their degree. As a result, they wanted to motivate more students to be active on campus.

They created the “Achievements” app, which aims to motivate students to get involved by gamifying the college experience. The app allows students to explore various ways to get involved on campus, with activities broken up into small, easy-to-accomplish tasks.

Students earn “Bennies,” named after the Ball State institutional icon, for involvement-related accomplishments, which they can redeem for rewards at the campus bookstore and Starbucks. There is also a leaderboard in the app where students can compete to earn the most points. Last year, the average user earned about $100 worth of rewards and the top earner received nearly $200.