“A thoughtful analysis by a scholar who not only knows the literature inside and out, but also by a practitioner with intimate knowledge of the challenges students face. Compelling. Insightful. Practical.”

—William G. Tierney, University Professor Emeritus and Founding Director, Pullias Center for Higher Education, University of Southern California, USA

“This is an important read for anyone who works in graduate programs or cares about graduate/professional students.”

—Jeffrey F. Milem, Jules Zimmer Dean and Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

“This text is a call to action for interrogating postsecondary contexts to meet the needs of a frequently overlooked population in graduate education.”

—Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher, Professor and Associate Dean, University of Pittsburgh, USA and Executive Director, Council for the Study of Community Colleges

This book focuses on first-generation graduatestudents in the US and the graduate or post-baccalaureate programs that house and educate these students. The voices in this book, including first-generation graduate students, address the phenomena of graduate students’ experiences and related university practices, with the practices connected to traditional academic and Western values and to academic and neoliberal institutional logics. First-generation graduate students’ testimonies serve as the foundation of the analysis of students’ pathways to graduate school and their experiences within graduate school. The conditions for first-generation graduate students in their programs require remedies that will facilitate student well-being, peer community attachment, and persistence, and will educate and train students for achievement in graduate school and for employment after graduate school.

"Dr. John S. Levin gives voice to first-generation graduate students, in a system that has largely neglected their diverse identities and varied challenges. Anyone who identifies as or seeks to support this population should read this book." —Jenny J. Lee, Professor and Dean's Fellow for Internationalization, The University of Arizona

"John Levin’s Pathways and Experiences of First-Generation Graduate Students: Wary and Weary Travelers thoughtfully considers segmented opportunities and stratification of postbaccalaureate pathways that often impede access to advanced degrees for diverse adult learners. Levin offers a glimpse of students' journeys through their testimonies sharing how they navigate identity, academic aspirations and career goals amid various constraints while weathering inequitable social and institutional structures. Levin has written a primer for anyone considering college pathways in their entirety. This text is a call to action forinterrogating postsecondary contexts to meet the needs of a frequently overlooked population in graduate education." —Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher, University of Pittsburgh, School of Education; Associate Dean, Equity, Justice, and Strategic Partnerships; Professor, Department of Educational Foundations, Organizations, and Policy (EFOP); Executive Director, Council for the Study of Community Colleges

"The dramatic and continuing shifts in student demographics in the United States have produced an increasingly larger cohort of entering students who are racially/ethnically and economically diverse. As such, the pool of students who apply for graduate and professional schools are very different than previous cohorts of students. In his book Pathways and Experiences of First-Generation Graduate Students: Wary and Weary Travelers, Professor Emeritus John Levin draws upon his experience as a scholar and experience as an administrator in higher education to document the experiences of first-generation students in graduate/professional schools and the barriers to and facilitators of their success. Moreover, Levin suggests “remedies” to improve the institutional conditions that produce the barriers that these students face in their academic careers. This is an important read for anyone who works in graduate programs or cares about graduate/professional students." —Jeffrey F. Milem, Jules Zimmer Dean and Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara

"A thoughtful analysis by a scholar who not only knows the literature inside and out, but also by a practitioner with intimate knowledge of the challenges students face.  Compelling.  Insightful. Practical." —William G. Tierney, University Professor Emeritus; Founding Director, Pullias Center for Higher Education, University of Southern California