Challenges, Support, and Interventions of Adult First-Generation College Students 

Jessica Hutcheson.
Being the first one to do anything is scary, and being the first in your family to go to college is no different, especially when that decision is prompted by unexpected career changes, such as the loss of a career later in life. It takes a leap of faith into the unknown without anyone to look towards as a model. That leap of faith is even scarier without support along the way, making it easier to decide to quit and go back to what is familiar. The road to graduation for older first-generation college students already in the workforce is paved through uncharted territory and waters through which they must navigate. There are speed bumps and sharp turns that will unexpectedly come up that they will not anticipate and not be able to overcome without some guidance or assistance. Although colleges and universities offer various resources to help their first-generation population, they continue to struggle with how to help this group of students by misunderstanding how diverse they are as individuals. Each one of this growing group brings their own unique background and story. They will face challenges along the way that are as unique as they are, and these students are more familiar with the workforce than they are with the campuses they attend. Many of them do not have anyone to talk to that they believe will truly be able to understand how much this unfamiliar journey to earning their college degree is for them. They tend to feel more pressure than their peers to succeed and struggle with perfectionism. Older first-generation students usually attempt to handle or ignore challenges on their own that continue to mount when they are overcome with problems that pop up along the way and are not provided with the necessary individualized assistance they need, many of these students begin to see dropping out of school as their only solution. Therefore, even though the number of these students are going back to college full of motivation and hope in large numbers that are continuously increasing more than any other group, the number of them making it to their graduation day is steadily decreasing just as quickly. Unfamiliar challenges end up meaning they never make it to the graduation day they dreamt about. Think about all those empty seats at graduation day that could have been filled with graduates accomplishing a dream that would have changed their lives and the lives of their future generations forever.