ABSTRACT
First-generation students are dened as students whose parents have not earned a bachelor’s degree (ayer, 2000). Low-income students are dened by the description provided by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, in which approximately $20,000 for a family of four constitutes poverty (Federal Register, 2005). Although we have dened low-income and rst-generation students under separate criteria, there is a fair amount of overlap in the issues each group experiences with regard to access, engagement, and developmental outcomes. Research has shown that two-thirds of low-income students are also rst-generation students (Corrigan, 2003). Further, McSwain and Davis (2007) point out that students from working-poor families (e.g., families whose income is 101 to 200 percent of the poverty level) have experiences akin to rst-generation college students. Given the similarities between these two populations we examine issues and strategies that relate to both of them. Our intent is not to suggest that low-income and rst-generation students are a homogeneous group; rather, we provide recommendations and strategies that work across groups and that may be tailored to address the specic needs of multiple student populations.
