Studying Educational Attainment among First-Generation Students in the United States

Although graduating from college may be viewed as a rite of passage for better social mobility in our society, first-generation students, whose parents never graduated from college, face unique challenges to achieve educational success in our country. The purpose of the proposed study is to investigate longitudinal educational attainments of first-generation students using the national data sets. This study tracks the same cohort of students over time, and illustrates their educational endeavors through multi-levels of analyses, from attrition behavior of 8th graders to the likelihood of college graduation. (Contains 7 tables and 3 figures.)