Immigrant Students' Journeys to Higher Education: Points of Intervention to Foster Success

Background:  Youth of immigrant backgrounds represent one-fourth of U.S. children.  Wide educational disparities exist between youth of immigrant backgrounds and U.S.-born children.  Attaining a university education in America is critical for immigrant youth in that, along with knowledge acquisition, it furthers successful acculturation and leads to social mobility. Little is known, however, about how universities can foster academic success among immigrant youth.  Our study asks: (1) What are the characteristics of immigrant youth attending a public college? (2) What motivates immigrant youth to achieve their higher education academic aspirations? (3) What are the challenges that these students encounter that threaten their academic aspirations?  Methods: In this mixed-method research project we interviewed 160 immigrant young adults (mean age = 21, 59.9% females) attending a public university.  Students had immigrated to the U.S. themselves (n = 64) or were born in the U.S. to immigrant parents (n = 96).  Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire and a focus group. The questionnaire asked about demographics, and factors that supported the students’ educational attainment or that posed threats to their success. Focus group asked about their experiences attending college.   Results:  While there is exceptional diversity in the participants’ backgrounds and resources within and across groups, there were important characteristics that differentiated among ethnic groups. For instance, students of Asian backgrounds had the highest levels of maternal education (67% with college or higher degrees), and family incomes (50% with incomes above 100K). In contrast, Latinos students had the lowest maternal levels of maternal education (38% with less than HS diploma), and family incomes (32% with incomes below 20K).  Across all ethnic groups, students strongly felt that they had to repay their parents for the sacrifices they made to bring them to the US, and doing well in school was seen as the best way to repay these sacrifices.  Discrimination was reported as a common challenging experience among participants.  African/Caribbean and Latino participants experienced the highest levels of discrimination compared to Asian and European groups. African, Caribbean and Latino students felt discrimination particularly acutely before coming to university. University interventions aimed at diversifying the student body, supporting cultural organizations and cultural activities, and offering a range of courses on the ethnic experience aided participants to achieve their academic goals by (a) reducing institutional experiences of discrimination, (b) offering a sense of belonging within the university, and (c) helping them to conceptualize their experiences.  Implications:  Our study complements the literature on the adaptation of youth of immigrant backgrounds to educational settings. While the findings highlight the differences among immigrant youth attending higher education, the research also show commonalities in the sample. Parental sacrifice was identified as the most powerful motivator for immigrant students’ success in post-secondary institutions. Our project helps identify points of interventions to ensure successful academic trajectories among students of immigrant backgrounds. University efforts to tap on the students’ academic aspirations, as well as to diversify their student bodies and to embrace multiculturalism are key to helping immigrant students’ achievement.