Ultimately, the underlying issue for both the theoretical and the practical implications of this research is the possibility that first-generation students suffer from a "cumulative disadvantage." Our findings clearly imply that even among students with similar academic abilities in similar learning environments, those who come from less educationally advantaged backgrounds may not perform as well as those who come from more educated families. This suggests that role mastery, as a form of cultural capital, is an essential component in the social reproduction of the gap between educational "haves" and "have nots." If higher education is to continue to be the prime vehicle for constructing a meritocratic society, then universities and colleges must ensure that the path to success depends on students' academic abilities, rather than on their abilities to understand what professors expect of them

hat I look for in the syllabus is the strictness or the laxness of the instructor, whether they are very strict about their due dates, their guidelines. Whether they can say it's okay if you're not here on certain days because attendance is optional, that's lax on their part. And it gives you a lot of discretion as far as how you want to be involved in the class.

If I actually take the time and say, "I don't get it, explain this to me," they'll normally sit down and explain it, but it's more of a personal responsibility. If you sit in the back and you don't ask questions, and you just let the term go by without ever addressing this problem, then you are going to be finding yourself not a happy person when your grades come

Conceptualizing role mastery or expertise as cultural capital addresses a major issue that has arisen in discussion of Bourdieu's work. One major criticism of many current appli? cations of cultural capital theory is that it is unclear how a conceptualization of cultural capital as "upper class values" or "knowledge of beaux arts" directly translates into social advantage in interactions (Kingston 2001:94). Lareau and Weininger (2003) have responded to this critique by focusing on the three key elements in the reproduction of cultural capital: (1) interactions where authorities evaluate individuals, (2) the standards that authorities use in their evaluation, (3) differences in the cultural resources that indi? viduals bring to their interactions with authorities. Stated in terms of mastering both explicit and implicit aspects of the college student role, this points to the importance of: (1) situations in which instructors evaluate student performance, (2) the assumptions and expectations that instructors use, and (3) the resources that students have for recognizing and responding to their instructors' expectations

The professor had covered the typed pages with comments and questions, and it was in his endnote that he listed the various campus resources available to me.

I was mostly keeping to myself to hide the fact that I was a very special kind of lost.

“You guys are still here!” the over-friendly person swiping ID cards said after day three.

“Now, parents, please: Go!”

o figure out what first generation really means, he said, it’s important to step back and examine the goals of higher education. “What,” he asked, “are we trying to do with the definition?”

Colleges don’t typically check information. But consultants urge their clients not to lie. Cyndy McDonald, a consultant in Visalia, Calif., encourages students to write essays about their first-generation backgrounds, even if they don’t meet a college’s definition.

It’s the same as the one used by the engineering school that Ms. Weingarten called — neither parent can have a bachelor’s, even if they didn’t raise the child.

Filling out financial aid forms can be a nightmare, especially when parents don’t speak English, Ms. Weingarten said.

With so many variations on what constitutes higher education and even more assortments of family structures, it’s no wonder there are lots of ways to slice and dice the label.

The reason is clear. State funding for higher education has plummeted. It’s down 18 percent per student, adjusted for inflation, since 2008, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The financial crisis pinched state budgets, and facing a pinch, some states decided education wasn’t a WB_wombat_top priority.“It’s really been a nightmare,” said Diana Natalicio, UTEP’s president and herself a first-generation college graduate. “The state does not recognize — and it’s not just in Texas — the importance that the investment in public education has for the economy and so many other things. Education was for me, and for many of the rest of us, the great opportunity creator.”

Pavia grew up in Canutillo, a poor neighborhood in El Paso, the son of a construction worker and house cleaner. He did well enough in high school to attend many colleges but — as frequently happens with low-income students — was not willing to leave home at age 18 for an unfamiliar world. “I just didn’t feel like I was ready to go out to college on my own,” he said. “So I decided to stay home and save money.”

After all, the earnings gap between four-year college graduates and everyone else has soared in recent decades. The unemployment rate for college graduates today is a mere 2.5 percent.

They remain deeply impressive institutions that continue to push many Americans into the middle class and beyond — many more, in fact, than elite colleges that receive far more attention.

Out West, California built an entire university system that was both accessible and excellent

Resilience

Equity

Life of the Mind

Courage

Sleep problems have long been recognized as a symptom of psychiatric and neurological disorders, including depression and Alzheimer’s. But increasingly, researchers are exploring the two-way street between disrupted sleep and disease. And researchers who started out interested in cognitive functions such as memory or brain development are finding themselves focused on sleep because it is so fundamental

In 1942, a Gallup poll found that adults slept an average of 7.9 hours per night. In 2013, the average adult had sheared more than an hour off that number. In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that a third of adults fail to get the recommended seven hours.

Alzheimer’s

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