First-generation students face wide array of challenges

By Ed Waller
Western Herald

For Janai Travis, 21, a Western Michigan University student and Kalamazoo native, being the first in her family to go to college is an honor for her and her family.

As of 2007, 36 percent of WMU undergraduate students, roughly 7,000, are eligible for Student Support Services. Of that 36 percent, 15 percent are first-generation students and 8 percent are first-generation and low-income students.

Since 2000, these figures have been relatively steady, but the demands for more of these programs are higher than ever with the current economy.

According to a study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2002, 44 percent of students enrolled in college are first-generation students with both parents having a high school education or less.

For students who are first-generation and low-income, after six years, about 48 percent tend to graduate, while those students who are only first-generation, graduate at a rate of 56 percent. So for Travis, being a low-income first-generation student and succeeding is going to be a task where she will have to beat the odds.

“My mom just told me yesterday she felt that I was a pioneer for our family,” she said.  “It inspired me but it scared me a little bit too because I understood that they’re proud that I’m in college, but I just hope to do something when I get out of college as well.”

Coming to college for the first time ever was like coming to a new world of uncharted lands for Travis. She didn’t know the territory and had no one in her family to provide a road map.

“At first I was a little nervous just because I wasn’t majoring in management or business; I’m a performance major,” she said.

To Travis, being from Kalamazoo and going to school here is still like being in a different world.

“Western Michigan University is its own community,” she said. “I don’t go home often, I stay on campus.”

Travis stays on campus as part of her contract with the Kalamazoo Promise. Being a recipient, she gets full room and board and tuition for free.

The Kalamazoo Promise is a program designed to break down financial barriers by enrolling students who have attended Kalamazoo schools and lived within distinct boundaries for at least the four years of high school.

“There’s so many things to do on campus, so many doors have opened up to me outside of the classroom and my academics,” Travis said. “I’ve had the opportunity to be in leadership professions or organizations, I’ve had opportunities to travel with different Christian organizations, I’ve done volunteer work that I wouldn’t have been able to do at a community college or even by staying at home.”

In addition to being presented with new opportunities, Travis has had to become more financially responsible. She pays for her own books, bills and the little things, like laundry.

Travis is not in any of the programs offered by WMU to help support first-generation students because she did not actually intend to go to college in the first place.

“I was going to go out to L.A. and try and be an actress,” she said. “I just didn’t have the money to go to school.”

Coming from a low-income family, Travis never really noticed the difference between people with different incomes.

“At first it was a little disheartening and I would get down on myself,” she said. “I would blow refund checks because I’ve never had that much money assigned to my name. $2,600, what do you do with that? Shopping is the first thing that comes to one’s mind.

“Learning how to budget, learning how to save and things like that have helped me a lot over the years; not giving into credit cards and just taking the responsibility to not want to be low-income forever.

“But I also think it’s [low-income] an advantage because I know how to work hard. Some people don’t know how to balance out having a job and going to school, but I definitely do,” she said.

With Travis’s personality, drive and grades, she believes she can either go on to graduate school or take the other path of pursuing an acting career.

WMU offers help for first-generation students that need more support than Travis did.  One of those programs is the TRiO Student Success Program. This program aims to provide a supportive learning community in which students can discover how to succeed academically, personally and socially.

Karen Mead, director of TRiO SSP and Rich McMullen, the academic services coordinator, both have spent several years working with first-generation students. They got involved to try to give students coming into college for the first time a chance to better their lives through education.

“I feel the best way to elevate issues of poverty is through education attainment, otherwise the cycle just keeps going,” Mead said. “These days, a college education is required for almost every type of employment. It’s important to get people aware of that.”

Both Mead and McMullen are pushing for more government funding to help support the program.

“There seems to be increasing awareness in the need to support first-generation students here at Western and that’s a good thing,” McMullen added.

This year, some of the students involved in WMU’s program wrote letters to President Barack Obama on the importance of funding first-generation students and how students in the past have benefited from the program.

Some of the key issues first-generation students face are a need to develop better critical thinking skills, better reading skills, better note-taking skills and the ability to create a system where students can use those skills to better their studying and understanding, said Mead and McMullen.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Apr 7 2009. Filed under Campus, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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