Seeking Opportunity: The Unspoken Barrier to College Enrollment for First-Generation Low-Income Students

This qualitative research paper aims to understand the role of parental support in determining college enrollment outcomes for high achieving first-generation low-income students from Houston, TX. Although the current literature recognizes the economic, informational, and resource-based barriers to enrolling into a selective out-of-state college, there is a pressing gap in the literature: assessing the effect of parental support. Thus, I breakdown parental support into the following typologies: emotional apprehension, absolute assertiveness, and resource-bound support. I conducted 16 semi-structured interviews with current college students and alumni of EMERGE HISD— a program that offers high achieving low-income students guidance to apply, enroll, and graduate from the nation’s most selective out-of-state universities while minimizing financial burden. Consequently, I identified the following three themes in my findings: the parental shielding effect, the constructive disobedience phenomenon, and the scarcity of resources. Notably, these three themes align with the typologies of parental support. Overall, the lack of parental support often inhibited— and at times, prohibited— first-generation low-income students from enrolling into a selective out-of-state university. Because these schools offer low-income students with the greatest financial aid packages and professional earnings potential, this research aims to decrease barriers to upward mobility in the United States.