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First-generation Students: College Access, Persistence, and Postbachelor’s Outcomes

U.S. Department of Education / National Center for Educational Statistics / February 2018

This Statistics in Brief focuses on students whose parents have not attended college and examines these students’ high school success and postsecondary enrollment, persistence and degree completion once they enrolled in college, and graduate school enrollment and employment outcomes after they attained a bachelor’s degree. Their outcomes are compared to those of their peers whose parents had attended or completed college. This report draws on data from three nationally representative studies from the National Center for Education Statistics: the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), the 2004/09 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:04/09), and the 2008/12 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:08/12).

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