Chapter 1: Breaking The Bank: Stories of Financial, Cultural and Academic Struggle from First-Generation College Students

At my local pharmacy, I am often greeted by a former student named Ted. Due to financial pressures, he dropped out of school to work full time. Ted’s story is a common one. He was a hard-working student, but his energies were split between his coursework and paid work. He couldn’t afford the textbook for my educational psychology course and bought an older edition, trying his best to follow along. He was the first student, though certainly not the last, to come to me and say, “I missed class because I had to work.” This explanation first struck me as inappropriate, and has since become something I see as part of a larger structural inequality that affects many of my students and chips away at their potential for academic success and the benefits of a more immersive college experience, which more financially privileged students often take for granted.