Why Do You Want to Be Poor?
Growing up poor on Long Island builds character. While trying to balance personal responsibilities with maintaining a GPA high enough to make myself a competitive... Read More
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
Feel the FLoW
Throughout my first years of college, I couldn’t help but notice I was different than my peers. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but... 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
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
Graduate School and Kind Strangers
By the time August rolls around it seems like summer is pretty much over. School started on September first this year, that’s the earliest I... 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
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
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
Don’t Leave us in the Shadows
I learned from the Summit that first-generation students come from many different backgrounds and carry many types of experiences — but we all share one... Read More
Class Consciousness and College Education: 529 Plan Strikes Nerve
President Obama released his budget proposal this week outlining a number of commonsense ideas to reduce inequality and create an even playing field. One provision... Read More
Broke vs. “Broke” vs. Broken
Nicole Brown’s blog post, “Broke vs. ‘Broke’,” explains one of the many ways class identity affects the college experience, especially in graduate school. Everyone I... Read More
Broke vs. “Broke”: Bothered by Humble Brags
This summer, I had a “stay-cation,” meaning I stayed put in DC where I moved last year to attend grad school. My “stay-cation” was awful,... Read More
Top 10 Classist Things about College
I attended the University of Chicago, one of the most elite universities in the country and world. Privileged places like the U of C are... Read More
My background made them “uncomfortable” at Princeton
On December 1, 2011, I was notified that I had been matched to Princeton University through the QuestBridge program; this meant a full-ride! I was... Read More
Turning down a full ride as a have-not
A full collegiate scholarship is a dream for some high school students, especially those that come from a low socio-economic status or those that are... Read More
If we don’t tell our stories, who will?
Last month, in the midst of so many unexpected things happening in Boston, I unexpectedly found myself turning my story as a first-generation student into... 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
Class Divide in Internships
Last summer I was hired as an intern for an education advocacy group in Seattle. It was my first time working as an intern and... 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
A cross-class dating anecdote
At Brooklyn College, part of the City of New York’s public higher education system, I began to be acutely aware of class. I asked a... 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
Upsides of sky-high youth unemployment
Posting Class Action internships gives me a window into the massive under-use of young adults’ energy in this lousy economy. Even for unpaid internships, we... 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
Socializing with Ivy League elitists
“But you don’t seem poor” — five words that I’ll never forget. In the fall of 2009 I arrived at Wellesley College after having spent... Read More