IDENTIFYING FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENTS: DEFINITIONS, DATA, AND DATA USE

Colleges and universities have increasingly turned their attention to serving first-generation college students, but how do they identify and reach these students? This report updates our previous landscape analysis with new survey and focus group data. Our updated data tell an evolving story: Though the number of institutions with a formal definition and collecting data on first-generation students has increased, there is still work to be done to make the student identification process more systematic. This brief addresses institutions’ definitions and data use, illustrating how defining “first-generation,” identifying students, and making data actionable all fit together to feed into strategic supports for first-generation students.