To not understand people who talk about being the first in their family to go to uni like it’s a badge of honour?

[Kyrgyzstan]

Sorry if this sounds dismissive of their achievements but isn’t it less of a rags to riches tale of personal achievement and more of a generational difference? I mean barely any of our parents generation went to university and now it’s pretty much expected if you want a half way decent job.

Obviously if you were raised by heroin addicts and managed to still get good grades and go off to uni that’s different but the children of ordinary parents who just didn’t go to university talking about it like a huge achievement sounds a little strange to me?

It’s lost in the thread so many comments coming through quickly, I’m busy now but will have a look later and respond then

My partner was the first in his family to go, but he dropped out, so he doesn't have a degree.

I didn't go at all, but my mum did.

If our child goes to university, does that make them the 'first' in the family?

Also, the indication that those who didn't go are too stupid to help their child do an application is insulting. But I do think it's an achievement to be the first to go (my mum was) and means a lot.

Nowadays if you are the first in your family to university you are eligible for all sorts of social mobility schemes, so in time it will be a privilege to be one of those people, but their own children won't benefit!

Sometimes it’s the parents and the background that determines how big a deal it is. I’m the first in my family to go to university, but my Mum’s side were/are all hardworking and consistently employed, just not in graduate jobs (think armed forces, civil service, tradespeople, etc) so it wasn’t that big a thing for my Mum.

My Dad, however, comes from a neglectful, abusive, background full of addiction and unemployment. He is the youngest of 9 children and was the first to produce a child who’d gone to uni and was beyond proud (and very vocal!) about his cycle breaking.

The higher education rate for school leavers is currently 36.4%, rising to 49% by the age of 25. So it's hardly 'just what's expected in this day and age'.

I used to teach at a university with a lot of students who were the first in their family to attend. They were economically and culturally disadvantaged - evident in the fact that so many needed to take on a job and also did not really have any understanding of what university entailed - so good on them for making it through.

The institution that knew you existed was the local authority of wherever you lived. Specifically this is dealt with by the education department. It’s the parent who can be prosecuted as mentioned in my other post. You have never heard of this happening but it doesn’t mean it has never happened. I’m a solicitor and a client of mine has been prosecuted for her 16 year old not being in education/training.

No, his dad and grandparents went to university, how would he be the first in the family.

Having read your update, I am struggling with your mindset.
If you go to university in the future, you will be the first person in your family to do so.
You were a teenage mum at only 16 years old.
In these circumstances, getting a degree and having a good career would be an amazing achievement.
When one of my friends- in very similar circumstances got her degree in her 30's, I was immensely proud of her and I bloody hope she was proud of herself. She had every right to be.
I wonder if you will feel differently if/when the time comes.

My children are children of 'first to go to university' parents. The don't need those schemes. They are in every way in a better position than I or DH were growing up.

Agree, OP

I had working class grandparents, who didn't therefore go to university (and this seems to be true for many others)
We then move on to my parents' generation- went to grammar/university (dad), poly (mum), but their siblings didn't
By the time you get to my generation- I'm 54, we all went to university or some form of tier 3 college- I did an access course to get into a redbrick which wouldn't have been available to my parents' generation- and wasn't very difficult!!
Then there's my kids- both set to go to university, as are all their friends and every other Tom, Dick or Harry from their generation.
It's become successively easier and easier to get onto a course- many more universities, some pretty spurious courses (gender studies, anyone?) and all manner of help to get there.
I'd like my kids to avoid debt and do an apprenticeship but they're set on university "proper".

Universities are not created equal. If you go to a top one, then it can be hard to find anyone who doesn’t have at least one parent who is university educated. If it’s an ex polly then probably most will be first in their family to go.

I’m 54 and knew plenty of people who didn’t go to uni, who indeed left school at 16 to start working.

I went to uni in the early 90s and my parents didn’t because they didn’t get that opportunity, some of my friends parents certainly did, but it wasn’t ’the norm’ like it used to be now so bring the first to go in the 2020s is quite an achievement. One of my DS’s flatmates is the first to go in his family.

Similar , my ancestors founded a major prestigious university (as well as some Grammar schools) and other ancestors were some of the first women to go to university. I always knew I would go to University. Likewise DS was chatting about what university he wanted to go to age 2.

It's obvious to me that my path, and DSs, to university were significantly easier than the path of someone whose parents are unsure whether university is worthwhile, worried about the expense, or don't understand the different options available and how to stand the best chance of getting in.

It's a huge achievement for the first generation students and I could see the extra strain on those arriving from that background when they first started.

Is it pride in general that is the issue for you? Do you disapprove of people being proud of other things?

I don't understand how you compare a 'rags to riches' story (which is usually something to be proud of) to an individual's acknowledgement that they have overcome hurdles to achieve their goal. Statistically, those who are first in their family to go to uni DO face more hurdles than others. Why is it wrong to you that this is acknowledged? (No one has said that everyone who is first in their family to go to uni feels this way. It's perfectly reasonable that not everyone does. But why shouldn't those who do, feel and talk about their success/what they found hard?)

Some people have an inner strength and an overriding purpose. They don't need anyone else; they have their own compass and they push forward on their own path. Those people are very and far between. At some point, most other people will look around for other people like themselves - how are they coping/how did they get out of this situation/how did they achieve that? (It doesn't have to be uni, it could be motherhood, learning a new skill, a health problem etc.) If everyone was silent about their journey and what it took to achieve a goal, where would those who need them find inspiration/role models?

There is nothing wrong with owning your success, OP. Or acknowledge that is was hard won.

How bloody miserable.

God forbid someone is proud of themselves.

Having parents who have been to uni is a massive advantage because they quite obviously are more likely to have the skill to guide you in your decision-making about which course, which uni etc.

The 3 kids I know who dropped out of uni all have parents who didn't go to uni. In fact 2 of them dropped out of 2 different courses at 2 very different unis. Both of them started on STEM courses and then transferred to other unis to do arty vocational courses and both dropped out again.

You've also moved social groups. It's easier for my kids to go for university than the kids in the estate I grew up in and not any easier for them than it was for me really.

I'm your generation, so would have attended university within a few years of you. However, my parents left education at 14 to work full time in manual/low skilled jobs. So it made it harder for me to get to university even though I was very academic and desperate to continue studying. Educationally speaking, we are not the same generation even though of a similar age iyswim.

It remains much more difficult for "first in family" students to get to - and stay in - university, even though there are many more degree level courses and spaces than was previously the case. Equally GCSE qualified "FIF" students are half as likely to attend uni as the children of graduates. It is still not a level playing field, and does these kids no favours to pretend that it is!

It has also been evidenced that "FIF" students are more like to attend less prestigious institutions, and I would argue that this is a continuation of disadvantage. The quote below is taken from a Nuffield report which I linked upthread.

"Young people who are the ‘first in family’ to go to university are less likely to attend a Russell Group university and are more likely to drop out than those with graduate parents."

@Kyrgyzstan I forgot to say above, conflating child abuse with pride in overcoming hurdles to getting a degree is bizarre and inappropriate, to say the least.

This OP

Your child wouldn't technically be 'first in family', as your Mum, their Gran, went. Also, your partner, even if he didn't complete.
The schemes available that I'm aware of, usually have a three generation count-back, so back to Great Grandparents. However, dependent on your postcode (in Scotland, we use the SIMD data), for the 20% & 40% most deprived postcodes, for weighting in contextualised admissions, for example. My Admissions professional services colleagues would be able to give more detail, but there's 3 or 4 categories they look at.

*Edited because I failed to close my parentheses!

It’s not something I would ever mention and I’m the first. Maybe I need to be more proud but I never thought of it that way.

That was absolutely the mindset my parents were raised with. As the child of older parents than my peers, who'd had their education disrupted by WW2, they (my parents) had no opportunities to go into further education, and started out in the workplace aged around 15.
I was average at school. I wasn't a great achiever, my parents weren't particularly able to help me with my studies, and at my senior school, there were a lot of disruptive pupils and a lot of poor teachers. I did learn to study harder and came out with a small suite of A levels.
I went into further/higher education much later in life, after both my parents had died. I like to think they'd have been proud of me.

It was a massive achievement for me. Nobody either side of my family had been, most of my family were openly suspicious/jealous of anyone successful, and I also attend a local comprehensive which was so poor it was almost shut down. I had to focus in lessons where behaviour from others was appalling. I also taught myself certain GCSE subjects at home using revision guides, memorising material I had never seen before at school. I got a double first class degree from Cambridge, so yeah, I am pretty proud of that!