America has always been a place where people hold on to a desire for a better future. Where this starts exactly is hard to pinpoint, but it doesn’t negate the individualism or commonalities of the struggles and importance of such experiences where people may see the need for betterment. One common approach is education; all families start somewhere, but on the way definitely see the value in pursuing higher education. Many of these families who struggle to meet this internal and external demand come from families with no degree outside of a high school diploma. People who try to break this generational level of education are considered first-generation college students.
First-generation college students approach the unfamiliar lifestyle of university in a variety of ways, some are better off than others because they face exposure to the ideas of grants, loans, or FAFSA. Despite this, first-generation college students become prominent outliers in maintaining a student life due to social settings, outside factors, and in general maintaining financial stability. In ¨Community Heals: Lessons from Qualitative Narratives of First-Generation College Students.” Journal of American College Health, the authors use the acronym FGCS for First-generation college students.
¨Prior to entering college, FGCS are often academically underprepared. This may relate to the quality of secondary instruction but may also reflect a lack of information about the college application process, available programs and options, ways to access financial aid, and other types of essential information. Within college, FGCS often display poor academic performance,” (Rhagavan).
It feels like in America, there has always been an institutional push for students to pursue university life. The actualized push started with The War on Poverty movement.
The War on Poverty was a time of Linden B. Johnson’s presidency, 1964 to 1967, where he took on the initiative to cater to the low-income populace where unemployment and education were the signifiers for a growing problem economically. He did this by producing programs, some well-known ones such as Medicaid, Meals on Wheels, Food Stamps, Vista, and Head Start. Among them was a series of education programs that were eventually lumped together and referred to as Trio Programs for adolescents aspiring to attend universities. Trio Programs are explicitly for the expressed need of low-income families, from student support services, to the Mcnaire program, and in particular, one program that recruits as young as 8th grade limited till 12th.
Upward Bound takes students from 8th grade to 12th grade and through program participation, encourages attending university and helps prepare for ACT´s, the FAFSA application, where someone should go when they need financial aid, the various departments on a campus and visiting a variety of schools. The program consists of seasonal workshops and 5-6 weeks of a summer session where students experience a semblance of the university student lifestyle by living in the dorms and taking classes with professors. The students who attend also come from different middle and high schools throughout the state of which the program resides in.
¨Upward Bound is one of the longest running college access programs for underrepresented students. Research has shown that Upward Bound participants are four times more likely to earn an undergraduate degree than are students from similar backgrounds who did not participate in the program¨ (Neeley & Smeltzer, 2001).
Why should students prepare so early for a goal they might not even want? Upward Bound not only lends experience to middle and high schoolers but also current college students who may want to teach in education, or communicate with students.
Pa Chee, a current program advisor for the Upward program, answers some questions about why going to college matters.
¨I think it is such a great way for you to learn about yourself, learn about others, I think when you go to college you hopefully find your group of people and through tha,t you’re really able to embrace yourself, embrace your culture.¨
Many first-generation college students are also second-generation immigrants lost in a diaspora reassured by figments of American ideals. If they can pass the hurdle of university maybe they can pass the hurdle of generational poverty. For those who aren´t second or first-generation immigrants they may live in rural areas where community outreach is harsh, have English as a second language, or lack the tools to take the initiative to gather information and make a decision based on it and the support one would ideally need.
Out of the many Upward bound programs the one set up in The University of Wisconsin – Stevens point, the majority is currently comprised of Hmong students. Pa chee the program advisor, who is Hmong speaks on her experiences about what college has done for her family, peers and the students she interacts with.
¨I know that for a lot of Hmong students, when they get to college it’s when they truly feel accepted, and so they have a group of people who share the same religion, food, upbringings. And then they feel connected to their culture. They feel like they can understand themselves more and just be themselves and learn and grow and make mistakes, work on themselves, take on different opportunities, build networks of people, teachers, professors, employers. Yeah, I think it´s just such a great experience to really grow.¨
Many college students relate to these experiences but especially find familiarity in these made connections from being a first-generation-college student. During this time they find clubs and communities that support their hobbies and divert the lifestyle they thought they saw for themselves.
One major boon of the program is it´s financial accessibility. Pa chee expresses her appreciation by noting why she was able to attend the program herself before finding her place as an employee.
¨I like that we are free, I think that that is very important because growing up low-income myself I don’t think that I´d be able to afford this program if we had to pay a hundred or two hundred dollars to come every summer or something, so I like that we´re free. I also love that we offer transportation, whenever we can, which is also another important factor.¨
¨So everything to give access to the students to make it easier for them, to be able to come to our program, its really important, so I think that´s what we do a good job on. ¨
Upward Bound does a good job of communicating its goals and what they are able to do to support anyone who joins.
¨Recently I think we´ve been doing a good job of pushing out our information to you guys, back in the day when I was a student in the program a lot of it was through mail and sometimes I think that that kind of just gets lost or students may not open their mail but with the text and email, sending information out to students that is part of the access that we are giving the students to be aware of our upcoming events. ¨
Through out the 4 years of attendence many students tend to develop an idea of what they want to do and find that they have already started working up to the goal. For any adolescent unfamiliar with education programs and the imagery of university life, Upward Bound is a great program to be involved in to find a semblance of what life could start to look like.