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STEM Degree Completion and First-Generation College Students: A Cumulative Disadvantage Approach to the Outcomes Gap
- The Review of Higher Education
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 43, Number 3, Spring 2020
- pp. 753-779
- 10.1353/rhe.2020.0006
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
STEM majors offer pathways to lucrative careers but are often inaccessible to first-generation students. Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study, we conducted descriptive statistics, regression analyses, and group comparisons to examine differences between first-generation students and continuing-generation students across STEM degree, non-STEM degree, dropout, and no degree completion. Findings illuminate that generation status is related to STEM completion, but other factors are driving this association; for example, pre-college STEM factors have significant predictive power. Our implications suggest a need to further examine pre-college and transfer pathways to STEM and to explore the limitations of first-generation status as a categorization.