[269] MTSU Student Examines First-Generation Collegians' Challenges

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Jan. 19, 2011
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

MTSU STUDENT EXAMINES FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGIANS’ CHALLENGES
Tara Perrin Finds Family Factor of Being First in College Little Studied, Misunderstood

(MURFREESBORO) – Intrigued by a documentary in which a young woman was ostracized by her parents for two years because she realized her dream of attending college, Tara Perrin set out to find out how other first-generation college students handle the challenges of their unique educational lives.
Perrin, a 36-year-old sociology major originally from Tallahassee, Fla., is writing her master’s thesis on first-generation students’ perceptions of changing family relationships due to the acquisition of higher education and how they feel these changes impact their college careers.
“For some people, it’s a really smooth transition, and, for others, it’s a very, very difficult transition to go to school and to stay in school because your family can be quite antagonistic toward you,” says Perrin, a first-generation student who says she had her parents’ total support.
In 1996, surveys conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, bolstered by data from follow-up surveys in 1998 and 2001, found that approximately 40 percent of all college freshmen are the first in their families to attend college.
In performing her qualitative research, Perrin is analyzing her interviews with students and comparing them to the existing academic data. While there is a great amount of quantitative research in which grade-point averages and retention and graduation rates are assessed, Perrin finds little research is available on the family dynamics of the first-generation student’s experience.
“Without really hearing qualitative stories about their struggles and how they deal with things and how these instances do come out, I feel like the literature’s really lacking in that regard,” Perrin says.
Even if academia has little to say on the subject, personal anecdotes abound. Some of the recurring themes include parents who say they are supportive but never ask their sons or daughters about their studies or, worse yet, rebuke or dismiss students who try to initiate a conversation about what they’re learning in college.
In one of the few qualitative studies Perrin has found on the subject, a student was criticized by her parents for playing classical music in the home, saying they resented what they perceived as an attempt to try to make her family “better” than it is. In an argument unrelated to school, one parent criticized a student interviewed by Perrin for using language the parent didn’t understand.
“A lot of parents who have not been to college can’t relate to what their children are doing,” says Steve Saunders, interim director of MTSU’s McNair Program, a federally-funded endeavor that strives to help low-income, first-generation college students prepare for doctoral study. “They have no point of reference.”


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Saunders, a first-generation college student himself, says students who are the educational groundbreakers in their families also have stressors that students from more educated families don’t understand, such as worrying about finding money for food, rent and utilities while trying to concentrate on studies.
“I think what (first-generation students) see are hurdles that other students don’t see because they don’t exist for those other students, those who come from families that have a fairly high level of education,” Saunders says.
Perrin thinks universities have a role to play by asking students on admissions forms whether they are the first in their families to go to college so that they can be counted and their progress documented. She thinks the information gathered might even become a marketing tool that can be used to promote the university to a potential clientele that is not necessarily targeted for solicitation.
“People don’t come here with the goal of failing,” Perrin says. “They want to be successful. Sometimes you have to give some students a little more support in order for that to happen, and I just feel like we need to know who those students are. Quantifying first-generation status would be a good step toward figuring that out.”
Perrin’s thesis is due in March. She is on track to graduate from MTSU with her master’s degree in sociology in May 2011.

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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For color jpegs of Tara Perrin and/or Steve Saunders, please contact Gina Logue in the Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-5081 or gklogue@mtsu.edu.


Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree—the only one in Tennessee—as a model program. MTSU recently unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.