ABSTRACT
First-generation college students “have complex identities, making them hard to pigeonhole”, yet the population of first-generation college students is often conflated with the population of poor and working-class students. This chapter explores the intricacies of first-generation college students’ various social class identities and consider how first-generation college status may be experienced differently based on social class identity. It is natural to associate social class and money or wealth. Knowing that first-generation college student status and social class identity are different things, it is curious that educational institutions and nonprofit organizations often conflate, or combine, the two into one. Social capital is someone’s connections and network—it is who they know and who knows them.
