King’s Developing Focus on First-Gen Student Success

By Amy Higgins ’19 

I was 37 years old when I enrolled in King’s College. I was a single parent; the mother of two young boys. Aside from parent-teacher conferences, I hadn’t seen the inside of a classroom in nearly two decades. I attended classes as a part-time student and worked full-time as a custodian. Over the course of nine years, I overcame many obstacles to earning my degree. There were financial struggles, childcare issues, and a general lack of work/life balance. I worked long days, averaging four hours of sleep each night. I spent a lot of time trying to tamp down feelings of self-doubt. I drove to my first class not knowing what a Registrar’s Office was, how to properly format a paper, or having ever written anything more sophisticated than a grocery list.  I’m still not even sure I know what office hours are. Still, in 2021, just a few years after I graduated, when I heard the term first-generation college student for the first time, my initial reaction was indifference. I thought, what’s the big deal? Honestly, I didn’t completely understand what the term even meant, but I had an inkling that I was one of those first-gen students that were suddenly being recognized, since neither of my parents had completed a college degree. But, so what? Earning a degree isn’t supposed to be easy for anyone. So, I wondered why this recognition and subsequent celebration of first-gen students was suddenly a thing and why it was important?   

In 2021, the buzz on campus around the term “first gen” was hard to ignore. It seemed to emerge on campus from nowhere and gain sudden significance. There was a lot of talk about the College’s historical narrative, that it was founded to educate the sons of coal miners and of its continuing mission to educate first-generation college students. Indeed, the first class of Kingsmen consisted mainly of first-generation college students from blue-collar, working-class families. King’s provided a new opportunity for higher education to these “local boys,” 90% of whom were veterans of World War II. Suddenly able to afford college tuition through the Montgomery Bill (more commonly known as the G.I. Bill), they enrolled. The importance of making higher education attainable to a new generation of students seemed to be ingrained in our history. As a Catholic institution, and a Holy Cross institution, King’s has an explicit mission to support students in need. The Office of Financial Aid hosts a variety of scholarships from generous donors and alumni wanting to pay their successes forward to future generations. Our Achievement Plus and Young Scholars programs help to reduce the overall cost of tuition for potential students, and the Presidential Hope Fund was created for qualifying students that require additional funds to purchase textbooks. So, perhaps it was an oversight that support geared toward meeting the specific needs of first-generation students has not always been in the foreground of conversation. “It’s probably always been there, but now it’s coming more to the forefront,” said Kelly Lettieri, Director of the Office of KC Pathways.  

Until 2021, there were no programs specifically designed to support first-gen students. That changed when the College’s former Associate Vice President for Academic Success, Dr. Rochelle Plummer, entered the College into the national discussion specifically surrounding first-generation college students. Led by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), this conversation had been trending on college campuses across the United States and encourages institutions to create initiatives focusing on advocacy, awareness, support, and celebration for first-generation college students. Plummer formed an advisory committee with various individuals from across campus. Faculty and staff from departments such as Financial Aid, Admission, and Hispanic Outreach met to discuss the needs of first-gen students. “She has a long history of working specifically with first-generation students. . .her drive when she first came in, to kind of push it to the forefront was, I think great for us as an institution,” said Lettieri. Under Plummer’s guidance, “an established single office that was dedicated to first-gen work” found its home within KC Pathways, an office which had been established to support underserved, underrepresented student populations. Seemingly overnight, King’s began with energetic momentum toward creating its own FirstGen Forward initiatives. 

By 2022, the First Gen Monarchs student organization was founded, a chapter of Alpha Alpha Alpha honor society for first-generation college students was established, and the campus hosted its first annual First Gen National Celebration Day. Also in 2022, King’s was designated as a First-Gen Forward Institution, an initiative of NASPA, which recognizes higher education institutions that have a proven commitment to improving the experiences and outcomes for first-generation college students. Obviously, a lot of resources and effort have been devoted toward helping first-generation students succeed at King’s. Still, some might wonder why it’s necessary. 

As a first-generation college graduate herself, Dr. Plummer is familiar with the unique challenges that face first-gen students. She has also worked in higher education long enough to understand that first-generation students seem to struggle more financially. She says, “Our research tells us. . .that first-generation students on average have higher financial needs and income barriers compared to continuing education students.” These students tend to come from families with low or modest incomes. For them, paying for tuition, books, and housing can seem like an impossible dream. Students often end up sharing these financial burdens with their parents. Cynthia Bednarski, a junior and president of the First Gen Monarchs student organization, comes from a single-parent home and says that she pays much of her tuition. She says, “My dad tries to help me but, I don’t want all that burden on him so, I try to do that on my own.”  Brandi Naprava is a senior majoring in English with Secondary Education. She comes from a working-class family and says that she and her parents take turns paying each semester. “We take out loans,” Naprava says. Both Bednarski and Naprava work at least 25 hours a week. Naprava works in the College’s Writing Center and has a job at a local chocolate shop in her hometown. She worries that next semester she’ll have to give up her night job because it will interfere with her class schedule. It’s especially scary since her income also pays for her commute to school.  

Commuting is yet another challenge for many first-gen students. Since on- and off-campus housing costs can often be unaffordable, commuting to school becomes an inconvenient necessity, which can have a broad impact on the life of a college student. Aside from being costly, it uses up another invaluable resource. “It cuts away so much of your time,” says Naprava. She lives in Hazleton and feels her commute causes her to miss out on social and educational opportunities. “You can’t really go to office hours, and you can’t go to activities around campus because you have to go home, and work.” 

First-gen student’s financial difficulties can be complicated.  It’s not as simple as just having a lack of funds. According to Lettieri, one of the most crucial needs of first-generation students is navigating financial aid opportunities. She finds that first-gen students and their parents often need “a little bit more education” and help understanding financial aid because they’ve never experienced the financial aid system. This lack of knowledge can sometimes be the difference between a student graduating and not. The outreach that KC Pathways does goes a long way to quell financial fears and frustrations. Lettieri’s office is constantly updating their resources and programs to educate parents and students on concerns like filing the FAFSA and applying for scholarship opportunities. “We actually spend a lot of time helping students navigate their financial aid situation and we spend a lot of time one-on-one with that,” says Lettieri. Getting information about financial aid resources to first-gen students and their families is key to student success. Naprava is the recipient of the Christ the King Scholarship and credits this assistance with enabling her to pursue higher education. “I went to King’s because I got a pretty hefty scholarship,” Naprava says. King’s alumnus and former vice president of the student organization First Gen Monarchs Paul Shoemaker earned a degree in accounting in 2024. He admits he wouldn’t have been able to mitigate a portion of his tuition costs without the College’s Young Scholars program, in which accepted high-school students attend college-level courses and earn college credits at a fraction of the cost of a college course. 

Lettieri emphasizes that it’s not enough to educate students and their families. It’s also important to spread awareness to the campus community about the unique needs of first-generation students. KC Pathways markets training, workshops, and seminars on how individuals can support these specific needs. Naprava benefited firsthand from the awareness raised by first-gen initiatives when she was offered a scholarship position as editor of King’s literary magazine The Scop by its former faculty advisor, Jennifer Yonkoski, after Yonkoski recognized her talent and need as a first-generation student. Bednarski also feels fortunate that she qualified for scholarships and encourages other students to apply for these opportunities when she sees them burdened with tuition costs and frustrated by denials for loans. However, being informed about available financial aid isn’t always enough to embolden students to ask for help. Bednarski commented that students are often “embarrassed” by their need for assistance. Some first-generation students feel stigmatized by their financial needs, have “hang-ups” about accepting charity and believe that they’re not entitled to receive aid. 

The transition from high school to college can be challenging enough without this added pressure to fit in among students of a higher social class. For any student, the first year is usually a rough entry; however, first-generation students and their families are often uniquely underequipped to navigate the unfamiliar ecosystem of college. Some first-gen students experience a kind of culture shock encountering collegiate language and terminologies for the first time. They’ve never dealt with class scheduling issues, or the problems of balancing work, classwork and social commitments. Additionally, a first-gen student’s parents may have little or no college experience to draw on to give advice or empathy. Without the support of individuals within the college community, first-generation students would be left to figure things out on their own, sometimes unsuccessfully. “Some students don’t know that you can get accommodations or testing rooms or that you can drop classes.” Lettieri says, “Students start, they’re overwhelmed, and then they feel they don’t belong.” These feelings of not belonging or “imposter syndrome” and the need for an alternative sounding board make advocacy and celebration important components of first-gen forward initiatives. Lettieri says the Office of KC Pathways promotes this message through mentoring, first-generation panels, and celebratory events. She stressed that recognizing and celebrating the achievements of first-generation students helps tamp down the self-doubt they may feel. She is especially fond of the annual Tri-Alpha Honor Society induction ceremony and the first-generation graduation celebration in which students have an opportunity to share their stories, noting “It’s very impactful.” 

The student club, honor society, and celebratory events like the First Gen National Celebration Day play an important role in building a sense of community. Bednarski feels that the First Gen Monarchs student club acts as a necessary support system and a networking device. “We have meetings usually once a month just so people could come and talk about their issues,” explains Bednarski. The meetings help students combat feelings of not belonging by connecting them with other first-gen students, faculty, and staff who can offer empathy and guidance toward needed resources. Shoemaker admits that as a student he was comforted by, “just being aware of who else on campus is first-generation” because it gave him the ability to ask for advice from someone that identified with and understood his unique struggles. Others like Bednarski, have benefited from the advice of their predecessors and try to pay it forward. 

Dr. Plummer believes King’s is right where it should be in addressing the needs of its first-generation students but says, “there’s more work to be done.” Plummer explained, “Our demographics in higher-ed has changed [to] where we know we have more first-generation students coming to college. We want to make sure we’re able to support them well.” The current focus on the first-generation student experience rightly aligns with the College’s continuing mission to educate future generations regardless of their economic or social status. King’s newest first-gen initiative launched in the Spring 2024 semester through a $26,555 grant from the Willary Foundation. Monarchs on a Mission offers services geared toward “improving retention and graduation rates of students who are the first in their family to pursue a four-year degree.”  These initiatives are key to improving student success because they promote understanding of the difficulties of the first-gen student experience and allow us to target outreach and support.  Naprava, who has a passion for teaching believes, “It’s always really important to acknowledge when students might need different support. It’s good that King’s wants to shine a light on it.” 

Image at Top: Students in Group Study Room in the new D. Leonard Corgan Library in 1969.