Hidden in Plain Sight: Building the Bedrock for First-Generation Financial Agency

In the American cultural narrative, the term "first-generation" is often regarded as a niche category or a specific demographic box. At PFR, we see it differently. The challenges facing these students often remain hidden in plain sight. These obstacles rarely stem from a lack of talent or ambition; instead, they reflect a lack of exposure to the "family business" of higher education and the complex financial systems supporting it.

According to U.S. Census Bureau data released in 2025, approximately 50.4% of American adults aged 25 or older do not hold a college degree (associate’s or higher). When focusing strictly on the traditional four-year path, roughly 63.6% of the population does not hold a bachelor’s degree. For a significant portion of our country, a student deciding to pursue a degree is a pioneer stepping into a complex institutional world without a familial roadmap. At PFR, we ensure college remains a viable, stable, and encouraged path for anyone possessing the drive to pursue it.

A Validated Approach to the Pioneer Path

College affordability remains a significant barrier for modern families. Tuition costs frequently outpace inflation by double, squeezing household incomes and increasing the risk of the educational investment. For first-generation students, these economic pressures compound existing academic hurdles. Data reveal first-generation populations face lower graduation rates and often struggle to secure the jobs and incomes their degrees should provide. Long-term research by Dale and Krueger (2002, 2011) reinforces this urgency, demonstrating students from disadvantaged backgrounds rely more heavily on higher education support to realize the intended economic returns of their degree.

Our commitment to first-generation success reflects a unique intersection of perspectives: the analytical rigor of behavioral economics, the practical discipline of long-term consumer banking, and a deep-seated belief in individual agency. Managing large, multimillion customer portfolios in the banking sector taught me effective models are not static; they are living systems anticipating human behavior and adapting to real-world needs. Banking models constantly update credit score cutoffs and risk assessments, meeting the customer where they are.

Crucially, my banking experience revealed a pervasive "decision deficit." Significant friction exists between how banks make decisions and how customers make them. Financial institutions utilize high-velocity, data-driven, and validated frameworks ensuring stability and predictability. In contrast, customers often navigate these same complex systems using intuition, limited information, or outdated habits. This gap often leads to suboptimal outcomes for the individual, even when the institutional model performs as designed.

We apply this same adaptive logic of the banking industry to student success. The challenge for first-generation students rarely involves capacity. On the contrary, these students often come from remarkable, resilient homes and possess as much as or even more potential than their legacy generation counterparts. However, they navigate environments where the specific decision habits, institutional behaviors, and financial "shorthand" of the university system have not been part of the historical family conversation.

Filling the Gap as a Family Partner

PFR acts as a family partner filling this specific knowledge gap. Just as a bank uses validated models providing stability for clients, we provide the financial perspective helping students navigate high-stakes decisions. Our approach avoids over-lecturing; instead, it provides structural decision guardrails sophisticated financial institutions use to ensure long-term viability.

Integrating our perspective into a university’s existing first-generation programming ensures students maintain a confidence-inspiring understanding of their financial path. This allows them to focus their energy where it belongs: on their studies and their future, rather than the anxiety of the financial unknown. This methodology is anchored in the decision-making research found in our cornerstone text, Making Choices, Making Money.

From High School to Campus: The PFR Partnership Model

We believe first-generation students thrive when support begins well before they set foot on a quad.

• In High Schools: PFR provides a full personal finance curriculum treating the college decision as the complex financial investment it truly is. We break sophisticated economic methods into bite-sized chunks appropriate for high schoolers, their families, and educators. Central to this is our Definitive Choice smartphone technology—a choice architecture serving as an essential concierge partner walking families through the selection process.

• In Universities: Once on campus, we provide classroom-integrated curricula and specialized, one-hour seminars for first-generation programs, similar to those we conduct at James Madison University (JMU). Our methodology utilizes our "Decision-FIRST" process. We avoid simply giving students financial rules; we teach them to become great decision-makers.

Teach a person to fish, and you feed them for a lifetime: By teaching the mechanics of decision-making, we empower students for a lifetime of financial agency and wealth.

Focus for Encouragement, Not Rigid Targets

A subtle but dangerous trend in higher education policy involves turning "First Gen" into a rigid policy target. In the worlds of economics and banking, we often reference Goodhart’s Law: the principle stating:

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases being a good measure.

Treating a demographic as a quota or a metric for compliance risks losing the human element. We must avoid creating rigid systems, prioritizing enrollment numbers over actual student thriving. At PFR, we believe First Gen status should remain a focus for encouragement and success, not an administrative target. When "First Gen" becomes a target, pressure mounts on the institution to simply "process" the student. When it serves as a focus for encouragement, the priority shifts toward enabling success through specific, individualized tools. This approach integrates elements of humanistic coaching along with more technical skills and tools.

PFR in Action: The JMU Model

We see the power of this "encouragement-first" model through our work at institutions like James Madison University. By integrating PFR’s personal finance programs into existing infrastructure, we provide tools accessible, jargon-free, and rooted in the student experience. Shaun Mooney, Executive Director of First-Generation Student Success at JMU, captures the importance of this intentional support:

The key to our success for a lot of first-generation students is to intentionally connect them to resources and programs here that can benefit them that they may not already know about... we have to be willing to say, 'We're serving a microcosm of the entire student body here, so what are these first-generation students' most specific, individualized needs?'

Mooney’s focus on "intentional connection" aligns with the PFR mission. We bridge the gap between the complex world of finance and the lived experience of the student. We act as the partner helping them navigate the "family business" of higher education.

The Path Forward

The challenge of the next decade involves ensuring students possess the financial and behavioral tools to stay in school and flourish afterward. By addressing the challenges hidden in plain sight, we stop treating this population as an outlier and start treating them as the engine of our future economy. We are building the bedrock for a new generation of financial agency—one validated model at a time.