Equity in higher education: A closer look at first-generation students – Houston Chronicle

Israel Garcia wrote parts of his college essays from the passenger seat, as his mother navigated two hours of traffic on Interstate 10 with just 33 hours left until the Nov. 1 application deadline.

Every second counted as they rushed to a college consultant’s office in Katy for help with a waiver for non-federal financial aid. A flurry of paperwork, handfuls of chocolate and one car nap later, Garcia returned home with one of the most complicated items marked off his college application checklist – but with only 26 hours remaining to finish the forms that will determine the next four years of his life.

Garcia had tried to approach his college apps the same way he learned piano and guitar: mostly on his own. The Carnegie Vanguard High School student sought answers on Google, as he and his mother are learning the U.S. college landscape together after moving in 2018 from Bolivia.

“The whole application process has basically been my own discovery,” the 17-year-old said.

One of the most glaring lessons they’re getting is that first-generation students face an uphill battle in the increasingly competitive system that favors privilege, even as universities purport the importance of equity in access to higher education.

For all families, college application season can be overwhelming. Students’ grades, test scores and extracurricular activities are scrutinized. Transcripts, essays and letters of recommendations must be gathered. And then there’s the astounding costs and the unfavorable odds of snagging a spot in one of those dream schools that accepts less than 10% of its applicants, almost all of whom have stellar resumes.

Families with a first-hand understanding of what it takes to compete or with the resources to pay tutors and consultants can draw up a road map to put their child on the most favorable path years ahead of time. Students without bachelors-educated parents, loosely known as first-generation, and other low-income students more often cast their lots on less prestigious schools or opt out of higher education entirely, discouraged by their backgrounds, the expense and the laborious process.

Garcia plans to buck the trend by attending a top-tier aerospace engineering undergraduate program and then graduate school. But first-generation students’ enrollment at the country’s most esteemed colleges and universities 

Garcia falls somewhere in the middle, with less information than many of his classmates but at a prestigious HISD magnet school for gifted-and-talented students that supports his goals of advancing his and his mother’s lives through higher education.

Every student at Carnegie Vanguard is admitted to college and 95% matriculate to four-year institutions. Counselors are available, and students like Garcia hold internships that give additional college resources. 

Not all of the applications were painful – sometimes the essays and problem-solving involved were fun, Garcia said – and he has the confidence that some first-generation students lack about their chances. He is a finalist for the coveted Questbridge scholarship, which matches low-income students to top-tier universities on full rides.

Garcia’s credentials are objectively high: He has earned only one semester B at a school where a stereotypically difficult junior year is a “hellscape,” he said. He attended summer programs through the University of Texas and NASA and independently pursues interests such as creative writing. He really likes the one-liner he used to reference his love for guitar in a Stanford University prompt to write a letter to his future roommate: “Dear Roomie, Have you ever been serenaded?”

But Garcia occasionally spots the disparity – not in his grades and test scores but in what he knows about college and how to get in. (He finds completing a nonhomogeneous differential equation more intuitive than the apps.) By the end of 11th grade, he could tell that some students’ portfolios were more developed than his. Garcia also knows plenty of people who hired admissions consultants and got more than the few hours he did – he didn’t learn about it early enough.

“It definitely makes me feel – not necessarily at a disadvantage – but I’m going to have to put more time into it,” he said.

The college emphasis at Carnegie is so high that even continuing-generation students have found it hard not to compare themselves to their peers.

“There are so many kids who just seem to know everything about that process,” senior Manizeh Rahman said. “I’m like, ‘Where did they get that information from?’”

Admissions consulting is part of the dynamic, giving students ample tools to work through a to-do list of college and major selection, essay drafts, test prep and resume writing. The services are pricey: Hour-long sessions vary but can go up to $400, and some students’ parents can spend up to $24,000 total, consultant Sasha Chada said. Garcia and his mother got an apparently good deal, paying $325 for the two-plus hours of help they received. It was a “lifesaver,” since Garcia tried everything and couldn’t figure out the crucial financial aid form, but anything more probably would have been too expensive, he said.

Ewert hedged that consultants help to widen students’ opportunities, but don’t guarantee admission. Companies boast “admissions multipliers,” showing how 4% of overall applicants gained admittance into Harvard, for example, but 16% of their clients who applied got in. In reality, the companies attracted students who were already more qualified for the Ivy, Ewert said.

Some CEOs at consulting groups recognize a disparity in their clients, although they said not everyone is trying to perpetuate it. One of those companies, College Transitions, uses money from one-on-one counseling to fund a public dataset for students and school counselors – and it draws 3 million viewers a year, CEO Andrew Belasco said.

“The bulk of the families we see are middle-upper class,” Belasco said. “Certainly not everybody can afford our services, but it’s an oversimplified kind of way to look at things to say, ‘Oh, just because you’re making money, you’re not doing things to promote equity.’ It depends what you’re using that money for.”

Garcia wasn’t bothered that some of his friends have used the consultants. The wealth of knowledge students seem to have at his school at least made it easier to crosscheck information, giving him more application-geared resources than he would have had in Bolivia or at a Houston school with less of a college focus. He snagged the intel he could at Carnegie and made seemingly endless Google searches to fill in the gaps.