ABSTRACT
First-generation college students are those whose parents have not attended college. Most of these students start college at a 2-year institution rather than a 4-year institution. First-generation college students were recruited from the Program Leading to Undergraduate Success at the University of California, Los Angeles. The mean for first-generation college students is significantly different from the mean for students whose parents have at least a bachelor’s. First-generation college students gave lower ratings of importance to the following reasons than did the students whose parents had at least a bachelor’s degree. First-generation college students did not differ from the other two groups in their ratings of the importance of those reasons in their decision to attend college. Some first-generation college students may feel guilty about pursuing higher education while their families are struggling financially to survive.
