Advancing Student Equity and Success at FYE 2026
At the 45th Annual Conference on The First-Year Experience (FYE 2026), the Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring was pleased to share new research examining how first-year students—particularly first-generation and Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) students—identify and prioritize their own challenges during the transition to college.
In our session, “Centering Student Voice: Challenges Faced by First-Generation & MSI Students,” Mia Lamont presented findings from a mixed-methods study designed to move beyond predefined survey categories and instead foreground students’ lived experiences.
Why Center Student Voice?
Much of the existing research on college transition relies on standardized measures and predefined categories of stress. While valuable, these approaches can miss the nuance of what students themselves consider most pressing. Our study used open-ended responses and idiographic methods to better capture the challenges students prioritize in their own words.
Across 1,021 reported challenges from 182 students, several clear patterns emerged:
1. Financial challenges are highly prioritized: When students ranked their top problems, financial strain emerged as the most frequently prioritized concern. This was especially pronounced among first-generation students and students attending MSIs. Although finances did not always receive the highest severity ratings, they were central to how students experienced the first-year transition.
2. Mental health challenges are the most severe: Mental health-related concerns, including anxiety, depression, motivation, and concentration, were rated as the most severe challenges in the sample. These findings reinforce prior work showing that mental health carries substantial functional burden and must be integrated into institutional strategies aimed at persistence.
3. Challenges differ by context.
Patterns varied by institutional type (MSI vs. PWI), generational status, and year in school: These differences underscore that student support strategies cannot be one-size-fits-all; they must reflect institutional context and student demographics.
Implications for Practice
These findings point to a clear call to action: financial strain is a core part of students’ college experience, mental health support must be proactive and woven into campus life, and real equity starts by listening to students so we can close the gap between their lived realities and institutional expectations.
We are grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the dialogue at FYE 2026 centering first-year student success, and for the thoughtful engagement from scholars and practitioners committed to advancing equity in higher education.
