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Description: Tracking young people's attitudes toward national defense
First Generation College Students (FGCS) means you are enrolled in college and on track to graduate and your parents or guardians and siblings have not completed a 4-year college or university degree but may have attended. Estimates are that approximately 20 percent of college students in the United States are FGCS. FGCS, on one hand, is a good news story as this group represents economic upward social mobility for a distinct and significant group of Americans. On the other hand, FGCS are more likely to le
A major predictor of college retention is the ability to pay for a college education and experience. But what happens when college costs are all covered? Are there still differences between FGCS and non-FGCS? Our data below point to some differences among and within our three groups in the directions we might expect. However, the differences are not exceptionally dramatic.
We compare FGCS with non-FGCS by Military Academy cadets, ROTC cadets, and civilian college students between 2017 and 2022 across a handful of typical and contemporary college life issues. Our sample yielded an underrepresented 13 percent of military academy cadets as FGCS compared to the national average of 20 percent; a representative 21 percent of ROTC cadets are FGCS; and whopping overrepresentation of 38 percent of civilian college students are FGCS.
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