The relationship between psychosociocultural factors and 6-year graduation rates of Hispanic first generation college students at a Hispanic serving institution

First generation college students (FGCS) are an at-risk population for graduating from college because of various obstacles, such as having less knowledge about college. Nearly 50% of all Hispanic college students are FGCS, the highest of all racial groups. Because Hispanic students tend to have their own unique cultural background different from mainstream American culture, this study examined culture-specific factors (i.e., demographics, academic self-confidence, meeting with professors, and attending cultural programming) that might successfully predict their graduation. This study was carried out with a dataset of all Hispanic college students from a single university in the southern United States. Results of this study showed that ACT Composite score and being a female significantly predicted graduation within 6 years. Additional results showed that ACT Composite score, being a female, being a FGCS, and academic self-efficacy significantly predicted shorter times to graduation. Surprisingly, being a FGCS was related to graduating nearly 13 months earlier, different from expectations. Although this study was correlational in nature (i.e., does not show causality), conclusions are that practitioners should pay attention to college entrance exams (every point increase predicted about 10% greater chances of graduating) and academic self-confidence (every point increase predicted a quarter of a month decrease in graduation time) as important to graduation for Hispanic students at similar universities. Practitioners should also pay particular attention to Hispanic males (female students were 63.4% more likely to graduate than Hispanic males) so that they provide these students with the support they need to graduate from college.