A Total Commitment to First Gen Students
Instead of a program located in one department, Mount Holyoke provides a dynamic, collaborative initiative focused on ensuring that the august institution is meeting the... Read More
B1GS: First Gen College Students
I am a sophomore at Rutgers University-Camden, studying psychology with a minor in childhood studies and social work. I am also – with great pride... Read More
Addressing Food Insecurity on Campus
The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food insecurity at the... Read More
Reader Feedback on Classism Exposed
More than 100 people responded to the summer 2017 Classism Exposed 5-Minute Survey. The responses were as diverse as the people who responded, as evidenced by... Read More
First-Generation Resistance in College
Being a first generation college or graduate student is already a difficult identity to navigate at a university, but even more difficult is attempting to... Read More
What Happens When Degrees Aren’t Enough?
Being a first generation college student often feels like being perpetually caught between two or more worlds. Many of us learn that we must... Read More
Vulnerability Is Courage: A First Gen Student Journey
Feeling Vulnerable as a First Gen As a first generation student, I felt vulnerable, and I didn’t want anyone to know it. So I didn’t... Read More
Assimilation and the First Generation College Student
Going to college as a first generation student of color is more than just getting the money and applying for the right scholarships. It’s also... Read More
Spring Break?
When I think of spring break, I think of MTV and early 20-somethings soaking up the sun. I believe that this ideal spring break is becoming... Read More
How Class Affects My (Breaks from) Class
As a teenager, I became acquainted with our modern society’s expectation of “spring break” through MTV’s spring break specials. I remember as a teen feeling... Read More
Debbie Downer’s Spring Break
Spring break is coming up. That means hearing about Cancun and Barcelona while walking by students, seeing Airbnb and hotel tabs on 101 laptops, and... Read More
Politics of Work, Socioeconomics, and Classism in Classrooms:
Education to Work to Live or Live to Work? I am a first-generation American whose parents immigrated from Dhaka, Bangladesh, so I could make it big... Read More
Systematic Failure: A Recipe for Self-Doubt
What does it mean when our education system, “The Great Equalizer,” turns low-income dreamers into third-generation self-doubters? When a high-quality education system is built only... Read More
The Sound of Class
The final days of summer always remind me of the time I left home for college. In an instant I can recall what I felt... Read More
Choosing Not to Go Into Debt for College
Nicole Brown wrote the following after reading, and being so affected by, last month’s (May 2016) Classism Exposed blog post on the possibility that students are deciding not to... Read More
Avoiding Loans at Any Cost
Recently, community college students in a class taught by Classism Exposed contributor L.A. Kurth (see her note at the bottom of the post) responded to... Read More
Forgoing College to Forgo Debt
In education, we are headed toward a perfect storm. Increasingly large numbers of capable students are so afraid of incurring debt that they are deciding... Read More
Too Afraid of Debt to Go to College
Recently, students in a class taught by Classism Exposed contributor L.A. Kurth responded to an essay in Yes! magazine about the student loan debt and... Read More
First in the Family: Social Mobility as a
First Generation College Student
As the first in my family to pursue a college degree, I have found challenges in navigating the privileges and isolation encompassed in the system... Read More
Finding My Place in Academia as a First-Gen
As the first in my family to attend college and to go on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees, I have definitely struggled to find... Read More
At What Price Common Core?
In the Kindergarten Classroom For decades, five-year-olds have been entering kindergarten with varying levels of academic proficiency. Some might be able to read. Others may... Read More
African Americans and Classism:
It’s Complicated When I started this post, I thought it would be a straight-forward musing on classism on and in African-American communities. A few minutes in, and... Read More
To Advisors of First Gen Students: Tell the Truth
I can still vividly remember my first days on campus as a first generation, first gen, college student. How lush and expansive if felt in... Read More
3 Things to Keep In Mind as a Non-First Gen or Low-Income Student Leader
I dedicated the last two weeks this past summer to being a student leader for the incoming class of 2019. I’m an academic peer tutor,... Read More
On Being an Other
“I don’t want to sound stupid or anything,” said my aunt as she made a remark about the weather being cold, but not as cold... Read More
“Bring Enough for Everyone”: What We Lose When We Lose Public Education
Did your schoolteachers say, “Don’t bring [candy, toys, coveted items] to school unless you bring enough for everyone”? Mine did. Maybe they recognized how incapable... Read More
Philly School Crisis Meets Pushback
While a group of determined teachers, parents and community activists rallied a small crowd in front of South Philadelphia High School on a rainy weekday,... Read More
The Ivy League: a class-based sorting system
Barack Obama’s election represented a triumph for African Americans who suffered years of race- and class-based oppression. Electing a black president was definitely a plus... Read More
Student Leaders Lobby for Affordable Education
Emily Dickinson once wrote, “why not have a big life?” These are the words I kept close to heart when I joined the Seattle Education... Read More
A story of crossing the tracks
I was born and raised in working-class Philadelphia. Growing up I did not see myself as an underrepresented and repressed segment of society. Certainly I... Read More
A Small Fish in a Big Pond
Junior year of high school, I was informed, was the most crucial one in laying out the roadway towards college. As one who was raised... Read More
Shame, School Lunch, and Passing
When I was in sixth grade, my family was eligible for free school lunches. I attended a small country school, without much class diversity, mostly... Read More
The Dreams of Poor and Working-Class Students
I was half-listening to the radio last week when I heard an interviewer ask a question that made me pause in my work to listen. ... Read More
Going on Trial to Prove I Belong
Soon after arriving on campus as a freshman I found myself navigating the long hallways of college almost furtively, quietly darting between the large archways... Read More
The anger of a first-generation student
Growing up, my parents always told me that I could be and do whatever I wanted. I always believed them, but what I was never... Read More
Overlooking luck
Can someone please explain to Newt Gingrich that people not wanting a job typically doesn’t cause poverty; being unable to get a job causes poverty. ... Read More
Schooling the system of privilege
This “back to school” season got me to thinking about my own formal education, and the teachers and professors I’ve known who have or have... Read More
Remember When It Was Poster Board?: Computer Technologies and School Disadvantage
Remember when it was the poster board? I do. I remember my elementary school classmates—Russell, Missy, Jake—who could never afford it, who would raise their... Read More
Learning about Class in Private School?
Like parents everywhere, we wanted to give our teenage daughter advantages we never had. High on our list was to provide her a much clearer... Read More