Predicting First Generation College Student Success: Using Noel-levitz Csi-b¿: Impact of Parental Educational Attainment on Student Retention After ... Rate at Institution of Matriculation

First-generation college students, those students from families where neither parent attended college, comprise anywhere between a fifth to almost half of the total US college student population. This study had two purposes: to examine the differences in the academic performance of first-generation and non first-generation college students and second, to determine how much parental educational attainment and additional variables predict: (a) student retention after first year of college and (b) student graduation as measured by the completion of an undergraduate degree in four years. The College Student Inventory-Form B¿, published by Noel-Levitz, Inc.¿, was central to this study. The College Student Inventory¿ is designed to identify those students that are at-risk to dropping out of college before attaining an undergraduate degree. A population of 9,490 first-time, degree-seeking freshmen comprised of five student cohorts from 2001 to 2005 were analyzed at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. The University is classified as a doctoral intensive by the Carnegie Foundation for Teaching and Learning, and serves the 16th largest urban metropolitan area in the United States.