Students · December 12, 2025
First-Generation Graduation Rate Closes the Gap With the Overall Rate
Six years of investment in the First-Generation Student Center have brought first-gen completion within two points of the university average.
The six-year graduation rate for first-generation students entering UW–Porter Falls has risen to within two percentage points of the rate for all students, up from a fourteen-point gap when the First-Generation Student Center opened in 2019.
The center attributes the change to a bundle of unglamorous supports: a summer bridge program, a first-gen living-learning community, proactive advising that reaches out rather than waiting, a small emergency grant fund, and peer mentors who are themselves first-gen upperclassmen.
“None of this is a silver bullet. It is a dozen small frictions removed — knowing which form to file, having forty dollars for a textbook, having someone text you when you miss a class.”
— center director
First-generation students are about 38 percent of the undergraduate body. The center is now piloting a parallel set of supports for students who are the first in their family to attend graduate school.
Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu
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