First-generation students struggle to find their place in college

When Carlito Umali takes center stage Sunday at seattle university's commencement ceremony, he's going to talk about community.

And that's just about all the soon-to-be grad is willing to reveal about his commencement speech. "You want to know more, you've got to come out and see," said SU's student commencement speaker, a charismatic 21-year-old who will graduate Sunday against the odds.

Umali, like fewer than 15 percent of the rest of SU's students, is a first-generation college student.

First-generation college students -- students whose parents don't have degrees -- are a demographic that continues to puzzle educators. Studies show that more first-generation students are pouring into the country's community colleges and universities than ever before -- about one in six freshmen at four-year schools, according to a University of California-Los Angeles study.

But those students are also struggling to find a place in academia -- more than half of the first-generation students who enroll in college never graduate.

Umali beat that trend. He will speak to his peers at the undergraduate ceremony at qwest Field.

But he gets that not everyone's story ends with mortarboards and spotlights. Some students, especially those from immigrant families such as his own, don't feel like academia's doors are open for them.

"When I got out of high school, I didn't feel there were places that were calling me," said Umali, who ended up enrolling in seattle central community college.

"I knew that I wanted to be a high school teacher. I just didn't have it all worked out," he said. "I messed up in high school a little bit. I didn't do my best."

Fourteen percent of incoming freshmen at SU last fall were first-generation students. The year before that, the University of Washington reported that 33 percent of its entering class was first-generation.

The colleges report that many first-generation students transfer from the community college systems. seattle community colleges doesn't maintain comprehensive data about parental education, but students tend to agree that their classmates come from similar backgrounds: working-class families where cash is scarce and college degrees are scarcer.

"I see a lot of people struggling a little bit," said Mary Jane Mancilla, a first-generation student at Seattle Central who moved from San Antonio. "You kind of get the support from each other."

A study released by the College Board last month showed the first-generation students, defined as a student whose parents have completed neither a bachelor's nor an associate degree, were significantly less likely to graduate than their peers.

The study looked at more than 1 million student records and found that about 45 percent of the first-generation students enrolled in four-year schools graduated. The rate for students whose parents attended college was almost 60 percent.

First-generation students with an SAT score of 1,500 or higher were estimated to have a 65 percent graduation rate, compared with the 73 percent graduation rate of their peers whose parents pursued higher education.

The study's authors speculated that finances might be motivating the dropouts, since many first-generation students come from lower-income households.

Umali agrees that sticker shock might be holding students back.

"You tell someone this costs $28,000, and they're going to say, 'Dang, that's how much my parents make in a year,' " he said.

Although tuition is rising, financial aid is out there for low-income students who know where to look. Twenty percent of UW undergraduates are attending the school on a "Husky Promise" scholarship for needy students. And Umali financed school through a handful of scholarships and part-time jobs, including working at McDonalds, Hollywood Video and Seattle Central's Multicultural Affairs Office.

Umali's father, Gil, moved the family to the U.S. from the Philippines nearly two decades ago and works at Boeing. He says he doesn't understand parents who don't encourage their children to enroll in college.

"They tell their kids to get a job right away and live on their own -- that's pretty tough," Gil Umali said.

He has another son and daughter pursuing college degrees now -- all three of his children live in the family home -- and even went as far as to take a few classes himself at Renton Technical College recently. He says education is key, and would like to see Carlito get his doctorate.

An increasing number of first-generation students are reporting their parents are the reason they enrolled in college, according to a 2007 survey released by the Foundation for Independent Higher Education. That same survey reports that 55 percent of first-generation students will work 20-plus hours a week to help pay for college, and that 70 percent selected "make more money" as an important reason to attend college.

But when parents aren't familiar with the college admissions process, the often-overwhelming task of wading through applications often falls on the student, says Victoria Rucker, director of SU's First Generation Project.

"You don't have a parent to ask how to fill out paperwork and all these things," she said. "Often there are language barriers -- they may have graduated from college in their home country, but they don't know the language here, they don't know the system."

That's something to which Chief Sealth graduate Jimmy Ngo can attest.

He moved to the Seattle area with his family four years ago from Vietnam. The language barrier was tough -- especially when it came to the WASL, Ngo said. But the first-generation student is entering the UW this year, one year after his older brother gained admittance.

The two tackled the college-application process together.

"I have my brother," Ngo said. "I'm lucky. He did everything in his senior year -- it was my junior year -- and I just saw everything he was doing and followed the steps he did."

Carlito Umali will work for SU's First Generation Project next year, recruiting first-generation students from local high schools. He said he'll try to show students that they're welcome at colleges -- that academia is a diverse community they can find a place in if that's what they want.

"Community, I believe, is really the foundation of all education no matter what you're studying," the English major said. "In one way or another, you're trying to find community."

He said he's saving the rest of his observations for Sunday's speech.

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Sunday, June 15, 2008 |

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