Routledge

First-generation students face a host of barriers when they go to college. Terms commonly used in higher ed, like “registrar,” “provost” or “credit hours,” can be mystifying. They’re confronted with a hidden curriculum, a set of unspoken expectations for how to succeed. And they don’t always know whom to turn to for help.

But a new book, the first of three volumes on first-generation students, argues that these challenges, while important to study, offer an incomplete picture of who these students are.

The book, How First-Generation Students Navigate Higher Education Through an Embrace of their Multiple Identities (Routledge, 2025), explores in a series of essays how different identities, including class and race, affect the first-generation student experience and how these

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