First-Generation Undergraduate Students and the Impacts of the First Year of College: Additional Evidence

Abstract

Using longitudinal data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, our findings suggest that first-generation students are at a significant disadvantage across cognitive and psychosocial outcomes compared to students whose parents have at least some postsecondary education. Furthermore, we tested for the conditional effects of good practices on first-year outcomes and found that effects of good practices on both cognitive and psychosocial outcomes differed in magnitude, and sometimes in direction, for first-generation versus non-first-generation students.