Going Down

From the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education:  ...First-generation students, defined here as students whose parents attained a high school diploma as their highest degree, have consistently had lower education expectations compared to those with parents with a bachelor’s degree or higher across all years. However, the expectations of both groups have decreased over time (see Figure 2). For first-generation students, in 2002, some 60% of students expected to attain at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to about a third (33%) in 2022. Similar declines are evident for students with at least one parent with a bachelor’s degree, with 83% wishing to attain a bachelor’s degree in 2002, a rate that declined to just over half of respondents (53%) in 2022...

Full brief at https://www.pellinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/PELL_Educational-Expectations-of-First-Gen-Students_Research-Brief.pdf.

While schools with low acceptance rates such as UCLA won't be short of applicants, the political impact should not be discounted.