The First-Gen CORE Project:

Cultivating Opportunities, Resources, and Equity

Using a qualitative, asset-based approach, this project was designed to better understand first-generation college students' academic, financial, and social experiences at the University of Texas at Austin.

Ana G. Vielma

Primary Researcher & Project Designer

The First-Gen CORE proposal was selected as one of 50 projects funded by the Office of the Executive Vice President’s Actions that Promote Community Transformation (ACT) Seed Grant for the 2021-2022 academic year.

An image of Ryan Mata. He has light tan skin and short, brown curly hair. He is wearing brown glasses and is smiling. He is wearing a white button down shirt with a blue plaid sport coat.

Ryan A. Mata, MA

Secondary Researcher & Co-Facilitator

Our research team received over 500 applications in a mere 72 hours from interested students across the United States.

We selected a diverse cohort of 14 first-gen students across campus to join our research team and proudly compensated each of them

First-Gen CORE Objectives:

  1. Build a team of first-gen undergraduates from across campus

  2. Create a list of factors and challenges unique to the first-gen student experience

  3. Examine strategies at the institutional and classroom levels to better support first-gen students

  4. Develop recommendations for educators and administrators to better support first-gen students.

CORE Focus Groups

Throughout the 2022 Spring semester, each participant completed three focus groups centered around the academic, financial, and social factors affecting their experience as first-gen college students.

During this time, participants could share their backgrounds, perspectives, and unique experiences related to these CORE issues.

Preliminary Findings

First-gen college students feel a unique sense of pride and pressure.

This overarching theme encompassed our participants' internal conflict of emotions spanning from a unique sense of pride to the burden of the pressure of being the first in their family to attend and succeed in higher education.

Financial stress impacts first-gen college students in various ways.

Although our participants came from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, many CORE participants felt highly anxious and stressed about their financial situation, further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

First-gen college students seek a long-term and sustainable community where they can feel supported.

The CORE study revealed specific feelings of exclusion among first-gen students in higher education. The COVID-19 pandemic further isolated first-gen students from engaging with others in numerous ways. Broadly, participants described a gap between their need for a community and the university's existing resources.

Recommendations for Educators & Administrators

  1. Provide students with access to a network of other first-gen students, alumni, professors, and mentors.

  2. Connect first-gen students to a financial advisor in their first year to guide them toward financial stability.

  3. Increase and redirect university funds to award additional scholarships and equitable compensation.

  4. Design inclusive practices to acknowledge the challenges, experiences, and perspectives of first-gen students. 

  5. Establish a lasting community for first-gen students to feel supported throughout their academic trajectory. 

Our work is not done.

We are proud to announce our project has received additional university funding to continue and expand this project in Spring 2023.

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