Obtaining and Maintaining Support

First-Generation Precarity and Structural Supports in Higher Education

Bibliographic Data

ID2292268
AuthorsJasmine L Whiteside (0000-0001-9384-3688, University of Louisville, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume96
Issue2
Pages345-360
Publication date2025-07-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Inquiry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0245 • E-ISSN: 1475-682X
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/soin.70022
OpenAlexW4413088759
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited53

As degree attainment remains one of the more accepted pathways toward upward social mobility, first-generation students are pursuing post-secondary degrees despite being uniquely vulnerable to obstacles that undermine their higher educational enrollment, retention, and later attainment. Universities have introduced scholarship programs as targeted intervention strategies to reduce some common educational obstacles; however, little is known about how first-generation students utilize university-sponsored scholarships and whether these scholarships are enabling relative to student success or reproduce existing stratification mechanisms within higher education. Drawing from longitudinal qualitative data with 61 first-generation students at a large public university, I elaborate in this article on the types of inequalities first-generation students encounter during their college years and whether or how institutional intervention strategies matter. Findings suggest that first-generation students struggle to balance both their educational aspirations and the vulnerability risks (i.e., academic, social, and financial barriers) to remain enrolled. This suggests, relative to existing literature, a complicated relationship between first-generation student vulnerability, decision making, and university-sponsored scholarships. These results contribute to broader sociological concerns of inequality by speaking to the current limitations of institutional support mechanisms and their impact on first-generation student socialization, integration, and later educational attainment

Academic achievement · Access to Higher Education · Economic growth · Economics · Educational attainment · Educational inequality · First generation · Higher education · Inequality · Intervention (counseling) · Pedagogy · Political science · Public relations · Scholarship · Social inequality · Social mobility · Social science · Socialization · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Status attainment · Vulnerability (computing) · Higher Education and Employability · Higher Education Governance and Development · Higher Education Research Studies · Psychology

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