To Work or Not to Work: Student Employment, Resiliency, and Institutional Engagement of Low-Income, First-Generation College Students

Board 407: The SD-FIRST Program – Impact on First-Generation Students

“…Persistence, retention, and success of firstgeneration students in post-secondary education have long been a topic of discussion [20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Models of retention suggest that that integration and university environment are key for preventing student attrition [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36], and retention of firstgeneration students in STEM can be particularly difficult [37][38][39]. The six year completion rates for four groups of students showed that income and first-generation status can drastically affect completion of a degree (Figure 1) [18].…”

“…Financially, first-generation students tend to come from lower income families and have greater financial responsibility. This means they may have limited financial support from their family and may be required to hold a job outside of their college class load [28]. While there is some debate about the correlation of academic performance and working while enrolled in both positive [51,52] and negative [27] manners, the findings that first-generation students are less involved on campus and less connected with peers can be further impacted by heavy employment workloads and associated time commitment [28].…”