Structured Happenstance: Pathways Toward Upward Mobility Among First-Generation Latine College Students

Abstract

Higher education is often positioned as a pathway to upward social mobility, yet access to highly selective universities (HSUs) remains limited, with first-generation college (FGC) students from low-income and ethnoracially minoritized backgrounds disproportionately constrained by structural barriers. This study applies an asset-based lens to examine how a cross-generational team of six Latine FGC affiliates of an HSU (i.e., alumni, doctoral students, professor) resiliently persisted in their educational and professional journeys, leveraging cultural and social capital. Employing Chicana/Latina feminist methodology and dialogic inquiry, we engaged in pláticas to critically reflect on factors that shaped our life trajectories. Findings reveal that social mobility was negotiated collectively rather than individually, highlighting tensions between personal advancement and commitments to family and community. We also consider the role of structured happenstance in pivotal encounters (e.g., being recognized by mentors, recruited by scholarship programs) that appeared serendipitous but were situated within systems where opportunity is inequitably distributed. Structured happenstance exposes the precariousness of such pathways and systemic gaps in FGC student support, challenging the notion that access to elite, capital-rich institutions is the product of merit alone. Our narratives offer a nuanced portrait of how FGC students navigate social mobility across the life course.

1. Introduction

Higher education is often portrayed as a powerful engine of social mobility, yet research on highly selective universities (HSUs) increasingly reveals how these institutions continue to reproduce inequality. Through admissions practices and campus cultures that privilege students from wealthy families, HSUs frequently disadvantage first-generation college (FGC) students, particularly those from low-income and ethnoracially minoritized backgrounds (Jack 2016; Mandery 2022; Stephens et al. 2012). While existing scholarship has illuminated key interpersonal and structural barriers FGC students face in college, such as class-based discrimination, belonging uncertainty, and cultural mismatch, it rarely centers their narratives across the life course. In particular, less is known about how FGC students’ challenges, and the assets they leverage to persist, evolve over time, across academic and professional milestones, and throughout different life stages.

This study draws on a counter-storytelling approach rooted in Chicana/Latina feminist theory and dialogic inquiry, using plática horizontal (i.e., “horizontal talk” in Spanish) (Rosales et al. 2025) to surface the lived experiences of six Latine FGC affiliates of an HSU (i.e., alumni, doctoral students, professor). Through these pláticas, we examined various assets, resources, and skills that shaped our educational and professional trajectories, conceptualizing resilience as a dynamic process in which FGC students respond to challenges by leveraging strategies and supports to adapt and persist. Resilience can be defined broadly as the process involving the capacity for successful adaptation despite circumstances or disruptions that threaten personal or systemic functioning (Masten 2018). We specifically consider the role of academic resilience, or the capacity to successfully surmount academic challenges and demonstrate high levels of motivation despite the presence of adversity (Wang and Gordon 1994). This strengths-based focus on academic resilience builds on a body of scholarship highlighting how cultural and school contexts inform minoritized students’ achievement (Gonzalez and Padilla 1997). To deepen understanding of FGC students’ resilience in their path toward upward mobility, we reflect on both risk factors, or circumstances that are associated with a higher likelihood of negative adaptation, and protective factors, or conditions that promote positive adaptation in the face of adversity (Wright et al. 2012). Protective factors include internal capacities such as persistence and external supports such as familial encouragement or access to cultural and social capital—non-financial assets that help individuals navigate social situations and gain social mobility (Bourdieu 1986).

As simultaneous researchers and participants, we engaged in weekly conversations to reflect on these risk and protective factors that shaped our trajectories through academia and beyond. Together, we explored the tensions that elite institutional access and upward mobility produced in our lives—between individual advancement and family obligation, and between class privilege and questions of authenticity in our home communities. We argue that for low-income, FGC students, social mobility is not a straightforward, purely meritocratic ascent but a nonlinear, relational process that is often catalyzed by chance, sustained through access to cultural and social capital, and experienced with and for family in collective rather than individual terms. By tracing our educational and professional journeys over time, this intergenerational account challenges dominant narratives that equate success with individualism and linearity. Instead, these narratives demonstrate how low-income, FGC students not only draw on resilience and leverage various forms of capital to persist but also redefine what it means to thrive within and beyond the walls of elite academia.

1.1. Contextualizing First-Generation College Students in Highly Selective Institutions

Although “first-generation college students” have recently gained more visibility in higher education discourse, their definition remains inconsistent. While some scholars define a first-generation college student as an individual with two parents who never attended college, others include students whose parents attended some college but who did not obtain a degree. This variability in operationalization of a complex construct has garnered increased attention in the literature, as scholars emphasize that such definitional ambiguity can hinder efforts to accurately identify, support, and draw conclusions about this student population (Nguyen and Nguyen 2018; Rosales et al. 2024; Toutkoushian et al. 2018). For the purposes of this paper, we define first-generation college students as individuals whose parents did not obtain a bachelor’s degree, as this definition is among the most widely recognized and utilized by higher education institutions (Davis 2010). Though many FGC students are low-income, not all come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Nonetheless, the majority tend to come from families with lower incomes (Schuyler et al. 2021). To contextualize this, households in the United States whose highest educational attainment was a high school diploma reported a median annual income of $55,810 in 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau 2024). Moreover, approximately 54% of FGC students in the United States are from ethnoracially minoritized backgrounds, and nearly one in three college students identify as both first-generation and ethnoracially minoritized (Schuyler et al. 2021). Students with these intersecting identities often encounter unique and compounding challenges at highly selective, predominantly white institutions (PWIs), which evolved to systemically exclude minoritized students and have historically maintained and promoted white, middle-class male norms and practices (Cabrera et al. 2017; Cheryan and Markus 2020; Stephens et al. 2012).

Focusing on the experiences of low-income Latine FGC students navigating pathways toward upward mobility, this paper highlights the distinct challenges they encounter. The lower socioeconomic status of FGC students significantly contributes to the stress they face during the acculturative or assimilatory transition to college. Common challenges include financial hardship, different types of identity-based threats (e.g., class-based microaggressions), and difficulty navigating unfamiliar academic environments (Ellis et al. 2019; Gray et al. 2018). Another critical factor shaping FGC students’ college experiences is a low sense of belonging, which has been consistently linked to disparities in academic persistence and degree completion (Ishitani 2016; Terenzini et al. 1996). In the United States, nearly half of all FGC students leave college after their first year, with many citing feelings of exclusion or a lack of alignment with the institution’s cultural norms and values (Azmitia et al. 2018; O’Keeffe 2013). Compared to their continuing-generation peers, FGC students often face greater challenges in establishing a sense of belonging on campus, an issue exacerbated by the subtle and overt forms of exclusion some FGC students frequently encounter at PWIs (Cabrera et al. 2017). At elite colleges and universities, these challenges are further intensified by stark economic disparities.

Ivy-Plus institutions (e.g., Ivy League schools, Stanford, MIT) are more than twice as likely to admit a student from families in the top 1% than one who comes from a low- or middle-income family (Chetty et al. 2023), illustrating enduring structural inequities that limit access to elite higher education. HSUs, as sites of concentrated wealth, often trigger intense feelings of unsettled belonging, stereotype threat, and marginalization for students from low-income families. For example, low-income, FGC students with ethnoracially minoritized identities frequently experience culture shock when transitioning to elite PWIs (Jack 2019). This culture shock reflects a palpable detection of difference along lines of race and class, where admission does not guarantee social acceptance and inclusion. Similarly, Gable (2021) explores FGC students at legacy universities like Harvard and Georgetown, detailing the disorientation these students experience as they try to adapt to elite campus life away from home while traversing the challenges of feeling unprepared and out of place.

As FGC students learn to navigate multiple boundaries between the worlds of college and home, they often encounter cultural mismatches between their interdependent, working-class backgrounds and university contexts that promote independent norms and values prevalent in white, middle-class communities (Stephens et al. 2012). Universities and their staff and faculty often fail to see that for many FGC students, particularly those from low-income and immigrant families, higher education is not solely an individual pursuit, but a collective effort aimed at advancing the entire family’s socioeconomic status (Covarrubias and Valle 2025).

Home-school cultural mismatch theory suggests that Latine FGC students from low-income backgrounds encounter tension stemming from conflicting expectations: the emphasis on individual achievement in college versus interdependent familial obligations at home (Covarrubias et al. 2019; Covarrubias and Valle 2025; Vasquez-Salgado et al. 2015). One study with low-income Latine college students revealed that students often describe fulfilling six key roles for their families: offering emotional support and advocacy to parents, language brokering, providing financial assistance, giving life advice, offering physical care, and sibling caretaking (Covarrubias et al. 2019). For some FGC students, ongoing familial responsibilities can intensify feelings of family achievement guilt and other emotional burdens associated with upward mobility—such as guilt over leaving loved ones behind, accessing privileges through higher education, and growing culturally distant from family members (Covarrubias and Fryberg 2015; Osborne 2024). Tensions often arise between Latine FGC students and their families during college, as students limit contact with home and avoid discussing their academic lives and struggles in order to protect family members from emotional distress and worry (Cuevas 2024). Furthermore, as students develop independent values in college that conflict with interdependent, family-oriented values from home, the transition often impacts relationships between Latine working-class students and their parents (Remache et al. 2025). As this body of research suggests, for some FGC students, the pursuit of upward mobility through higher education may unfold as a collective process that involves family or influences relational dynamics.

1.2. First-Generation College Students’ Acquisition of Dominant and Nondominant Capital

Despite recent efforts to diversify through no-loan financial aid and targeted recruitment, HSUs continue to operate within a hidden curriculum—an unspoken set of academic, social, and cultural norms that privileges upper-middle-class whiteness and disadvantages those unfamiliar with it (Gable 2021). Experiences of cultural mismatch emerge when the values and practices students bring from home clash with the dominant norms privileged by elite institutions. Bourdieu’s theory of social and cultural reproduction offers a foundational lens for understanding socioeconomic inequality, particularly how educational institutions play a role in the maintenance of a social hierarchy (Bourdieu 1986; Bourdieu and Passeron 1990). Central to this theory is the concept of cultural capital, defined as the accumulation of cultural knowledge, skills and behaviors possessed by privileged groups in society. This capital exists in three interrelated forms: embodied (internalized dispositions, skills, and knowledge), objectified (material possessions like books and art), and institutionalized (formal qualifications and credentials). Alongside economic capital (i.e., money, material possessions) and social capital (i.e., resources gained through social networks and institutionalized connections), cultural capital is considered a form of dominant capital because it is recognized and valued by dominant groups in society (Bourdieu 1986; Lareau and Weininger 2003). By aligning with existing power structures and norms, it enables individuals to navigate institutional systems more effectively and achieve greater social mobility and status. For instance, academic institutions can transmit cultural capital to FGC students by promoting help-seeking behaviors—encouraging them to feel confident requesting support—and by providing specialized knowledge, such as guidance on accessing resources, both of which can enhance academic outcomes (Richards 2022).

Traditional interpretations of Bourdieusian cultural capital theory have been critiqued for framing working-class and ethnoracially minoritized communities as culturally deficient (Yosso 2005). While Bourdieu emphasizes the absence of dominant capital among these groups, he gives less attention to the nondominant capital they hold—the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are highly valued within their communities but not validated in mainstream contexts. Yosso’s (2005) model of community cultural wealth counters this deficit-based discourse by identifying six forms of nondominant capital that students bring from their communities, including familial capital (cultural values and knowledge passed down from family), aspirational capital (the ability to maintain hopes and dreams despite barriers), navigational capital (skills for maneuvering through social institutions), and resistant capital (knowledge and skills fostered through opposition to inequality). For instance, although they do not have a college education, many FGC students’ families offer both instrumental and emotional support (e.g., phone calls, visits) that are essential to academic resilience and success (Capannola and Johnson 2022). A review of the literature on family support among FGC students found that these students embody self-determination and agency when they actively seek support from parents, siblings, and extended family to persevere with their academic goals (LeBouef and Dworkin 2021). Drawing strength from familial and aspirational capital, many FGC students report that setting an example and forging a path for younger siblings motivated them to resist obstacles on their higher education journey (Capannola and Johnson 2022). These asset-based perspectives highlight how FGC students develop and leverage knowledge and skills from their families and community to resist systemic barriers and social inequality broadly.

Our paper does not position FGC students and their communities as lacking, rather we acknowledge that HSUs, as social institutions of privilege, often require students to acquire and deploy cultural and social capital valued within society’s existing power structures in order to succeed in higher education. These selective institutions offer access to academic prestige, elite networks, mentorship, and internships, all resources that facilitate navigation of academic and professional systems during college and beyond. For instance, economists have shown that students who attend an Ivy-Plus college are 60% more likely to reach the top 1% of earners, almost twice as likely to attend an elite graduate school, and three times as likely to secure employment at a prestigious firm (Chetty et al. 2023). For many FGC students, obtaining these forms of capital is essential for upward mobility, equipping them with the information, guidance, and connections needed to enter and navigate unfamiliar environments (Moschetti and Hudley 2015; Stanton-Salazar 2011). The acquisition of this dominant capital enables upward mobility within systems that validate these privileged forms of knowledge. Furthermore, it is important to note that access to cultural capital is not equally distributed among FGC students. Those who attended elite or private high schools often enter college with more preparation and familiarity with academic norms than peers from underfunded public schools, highlighting how structural inequalities shape students’ ability to acquire dominant capital even before college (Jack 2019). The hidden curriculum for navigating financial aid, registration, academic expectations, and professional development opportunities makes these systems particularly challenging for students without prior exposure to the “culture of college” (Cabrera and Padilla 2004; Chang et al. 2020).

By exploring how FGC students strategically acquire and utilize cultural and social capital and how this process reflects their resilient adaptation across their educational and professional journeys, our study provides a broader portrait of how FGC students negotiate elite, privileged educational contexts and the varied internal and external resources they draw upon in pursuit of upward mobility. To examine and reflect on our respective educational and professional life course trajectories as FGC students, we framed our inquiry and pláticas around: how we individually were confronted by obstacles (risk factors) to higher education as we began our journeys well before we became university students and the protective factors (e.g., parents, mentors) that eased our educational pathways, as we drew strength from our inherent cultural capital while also gaining access to the necessary dominant capital to succeed as first generation university students, which subsequently opened doors to upward social mobility.

2. Positionality Statement

Before delving into the methods we employed, we briefly describe how we came to this work and how our lived experiences inform this line of inquiry. Our research team consists of six Latine FGC affiliates (n = 3 female; n = 3 male) of an HSU—including three alumni, two doctoral students, and one faculty member—encompassing different stages of educational and professional trajectories. All authors identify as Latine FGC graduates from low-income backgrounds, though all team members are no longer low-income. Five of the six authors either graduated from or are currently enrolled at the same HSU; the remaining author, while not a graduate of the institution, is a senior faculty member who brings the perspective of navigating the same institutional context in a professional capacity. Drawing from our insider knowledge as Latine individuals who have traversed the same PWI and elite academic space, we occupy dual roles as researchers and participants in this collaborative plática study. Our work is guided by a shared commitment to uplift first-generation students from economically disadvantaged and racially minoritized backgrounds and to challenge the structural inequities that continue to shape access to and success within higher education.

The cross-generational composition of our team—spanning current students to seasoned professionals in academia and industry and ranging from Generation Z to baby boomers—facilitated an ongoing exchange of relational and experiential knowledge. This dynamic not only allowed us to situate our narratives within broader historical and institutional patterns of opportunity and exclusion but also encouraged us to reflect on how educational challenges and privileges persist or shift over time. Committed to flattening institutional hierarchies, we cultivated an environment grounded in horizontal power-sharing, where lived experience was valued as a form of expertise regardless of career stage or role. Our positionalities deeply shape how we interpret the experiences of Latine FGC students navigating HSUs and professional life beyond undergraduate education. Through reflexive engagement with our own educational trajectories and pursuit of social mobility, we aim to illuminate the interplay between academic resilience, cultural and social capital, and systemic constraints.

3. Materials and Methods

This narrative case study explores our resilience as first-generation, low-income Latine academics and professionals, focusing on the risk factors we overcame throughout our educational journeys and the cultural and social capital we mobilized to persist within an HSU and beyond in our careers. Additionally, we examine how these interconnected dynamics have shaped our pursuit of upward social mobility. While much of the literature on low-income, FGC students draws from quantitative surveys or interview-based data, this study offers an insider perspective, in which participants play a role as researchers. In this study, all members of the research team engaged in plática horizontal, a methodological framework developed by Rosales et al. (2025) that centers relational conversation and reflective knowledge co-production. Drawing from critical race theory’s tradition of counter-storytelling (Delgado and Stefancic 2001; Solórzano and Yosso 2002), Chicana/Latina feminist theory (Bernal et al. 2023), grounded theory (Charmaz 2006), and phenomenology (Husserl and Moran 2012), the use of plática horizontal challenges dominant notions of research objectivity by valuing relationality and shared meaning-making. By telling our own counterstories and reflecting on the structural barriers we have overcome as Latine, low-income, and FGC scholars, we resist and interrogate majoritarian narratives.

Our research team is composed of six members affiliated with the same highly selective private university in the United States, hereafter referred to as [Selective University]. We conducted five pláticas over Zoom, each lasting approximately 60 to 90 min. These pláticas were semi-structured but remained flexible, designed to build reciprocal trust and create a shared space for critical self-reflection. In an effort to co-create dialog, each participant contributed discussion prompts to a collaborative question bank prior to each session. This procedure allowed for communal agenda-setting, ensuring that each member had agency in shaping the conversation and to allow for deeper reflection and discussion of previously discussed topics. In alignment with a commitment to horizontal power-sharing, all participants were recognized as co-creators of knowledge and included as authors.

Plática recordings were transcribed and analyzed using both deductive and data-driven inductive approaches, informed by grounded theory and thematic analysis (Charmaz 2006; Braun and Clarke 2013). Our analysis unfolded in several stages: first, familiarization with the transcripts; then open and axial coding to identify recurring themes; and finally, the identification of emergent themes reflecting patterns in the ways that risk and resilience, as well as cultural and social capital, shaped our pursuit of higher education at an HSU and our efforts toward upward social mobility. Throughout this process, we engaged in member-checking and collaborative analysis via a shared document, allowing us to revisit themes and refine interpretations in dialog with one another. This recursive engagement not only strengthened the validity of our findings but also deepened our shared understanding of the interpersonal, institutional, and cultural dynamics that shaped our respective academic and career pathways.

To protect the confidentiality of each plática member and mitigate possible risks associated with sharing personal experiences, we replaced all real names with the following pseudonyms: Collaborator U, V, W, X, Y, Z. While still preserving the integrity and authenticity of our stories, we altered identifiable information related to specific experiences and individuals to ensure that each collaborator felt secure with their level of disclosure. Engaging in plática horizontal functioned not only as a culturally relevant methodology but also as an asset-based form of counter-storytelling, allowing us to illuminate the resilience and knowledge that first-generation, low-income, Latine students bring to the academy. This dialogic approach also allowed us to candidly demystify aspects of the hidden curriculum and shed light on the often-unspoken realities of crossing social class boundaries and negotiating changes in social mobility. Specifically, the research questions that guided the thematic analyses of our pláticas included:

• What risk and protective factors did we encounter on our educational journeys?
• How have we drawn upon both dominant and nondominant forms of capital to persist and advance through our respective higher education and professional pathways?
• How have we experienced upward mobility, and how has this experience of boundary crossing shaped our path over time?

4. Results

Thematic analysis of our pláticas revealed not only the challenges we encountered, but also the strengths and strategies we cultivated throughout our academic and professional journeys as first-generation, low-income Latine individuals. These cross-generational counterstories underscored the critical role of both dominant and nondominant forms of capital in navigating risk, resisting systemic barriers, and achieving upward mobility within higher education. Our narratives illuminated how access to a well-resourced institution shaped the development of our social networks and how the experience of mobility has reverberated across our families and life trajectories. The findings that follow are organized by our three guiding research questions and reflect key themes that emerged both inductively and deductively from our pláticas, interpreted through a conceptual lens that centers resilience, and the capital that preceded this, in shaping our paths to and through higher education (see

Table 1. Deductive and Inductive Codes Organized by Guiding Research Questions.

Research Question	Parent Code Examples	Child Code Examples	Analytic Approach
(1) What risk and protective factors did we encounter on our educational journeys?	Family and Home Neighborhood and Community Early Schooling Internal Protective Factors	Familial Support Familial Poverty Home Instability Neighborhood Violence Academic Motivation Persistence	Deductive
(2) How have we drawn upon both dominant and nondominant forms of capital to persist and advance through our respective higher education and professional pathways?	Cultural Capital Social Capital Nondominant Capital	Non-kin Mentors (i.e., institutional agents like school counselors) “Chance” Encounters (i.e., happenstance) Elite Preparatory Schools Peer/Social Networks Elite Preparatory Schools Academic Prestige	Combination of Inductive and Deductive
(3) How have we experienced upward mobility, and how has this experience of boundary crossing shaped our path over time?	Upward Mobility Experiences at a Highly Selective University Upward Mobility Experiences in the Workplace Upward Mobility Experiences at Home and with Family	Crossing Social Class Boundaries Ongoing Negotiation of Identity Responsibility to Family/Community Cultural Divides Between Home and School/Work	Inductive

).

4.1. Research Question 1 Results: What Risk and Protective Factors Did We Encounter on Our Educational Journeys?

4.1.1. Theme 1: Risk and Protective Factors Prior to College

Risk Factors

To understand our longitudinal educational trajectories and paths toward upward mobility, we first reflected on both risk and protective factors that shaped our early lives prior to arriving at [Selective University]. As our results demonstrated, FGC students often contend with a unique set of circumstantial challenges that can impact their academic success and overall well-being. From financial hardship to unstable home and neighborhood environments, these structural and social conditions often demanded early adultification, emotional resilience, and self-reliance long before college.

As first-generation, low-income Latine students, many of us grew up in households where poverty was a defining context of our lives that demanded early maturation, financial responsibility, and emotional resilience. Plática participants shared stories of growing up with limited family resources and pressures to become financially independent at early ages. Collaborator V discussed how her mother’s reality check shaped her understanding of higher education as a necessity:

“Because of how we grew up. My mother basically said, ‘When you’re 18, you’re on your own,’ because she didn’t have the means to help us. Without an education, it was very difficult for her to support five kids…She was making it at that time with less than an eighth-grade education…but she managed to find work in our community at the public health center. We were in a difficult financial situation, but she was working around people who were educated—like doctors and nurses. She really saw how important education was for them to accomplish what they were achieving in their work.”

Collaborator V’s reflection illustrates how early exposure to economic constraints, coupled with the example of how her mother’s crossing into a professional environment without formal schooling, impacted the value she placed on education as a pathway for upward mobility.

Collaborator Z described the daily strain of growing up in a working-class household: “My mom was the most stable force in our lives, even though we were very poor. She worked in the service industry her whole life… we just barely scraped by each month—really, just barely. We often had to rely on the food bank and similar resources just to get through.” At the same time, environmental risk factors, such as housing instability, exposure to violence, and family dysfunction, compounded these economic challenges. Participants described growing up in communities marked by gang activity and substance abuse. These contexts often disrupted their ability to fully engage with school and undermined their early academic aspirations. Collaborator Z recalled, “We lived in a dangerous neighborhood with gangs and other criminal activity… For me, all those things meant I wasn’t thinking about my school performance.”

These narratives reveal how financial and environmental instability are mutually cascading risk factors that shaped not only participants’ access to education, but also their sense of what was possible from education.

Protective Factors

In our pláticas, we also reflected on protective factors, or the characteristics or resources that helped mitigate the risks we faced and supported our academic resilience and persistence. Across participants’ narratives, familial support consistently emerged as a foundational source of strength and motivation. Even in the absence of formal education or financial resources, parents—especially mothers—were often cited as early nurturers of intellectual curiosity and belief in what was possible. This form of social support laid the groundwork for some participants’ academic trajectories and fostered a sense of educational purpose from a young age.

Collaborator X reflected on the intentional efforts her mother made to cultivate a strong orientation toward learning, despite her own lack of access to higher education:

“My mom has always been my greatest advocate. She was determined to give me the opportunities she never had as a young immigrant in the U.S. Although she dreamed of becoming a nurse, caretaking duties as the eldest daughter, strict gendered expectations, and her father’s prohibition of enrolling in the local community college kept her from pursuing higher education. On top of that, as a formerly undocumented immigrant, she would have had to pay additional tuition fees, which made college financially impossible…She had me soon after finishing high school, and she devoted herself to nurturing my growth. She read parenting books, volunteered in my elementary school classrooms, and supported both me and my younger brother in our learning. Because she faced so many unfair limitations growing up, she wanted to break generational cycles by making sure that I had the freedom to follow my academic dreams and apply to schools like [Selective University], even if it meant leaving home—which was a big deal for my family given than I’m the first to go to college and the first in my entire extended family to move away for school.”

Collaborator X’s reflection highlights how immigrant familial histories inform the way many Latine parents fuel their children’s college-going aspirations (Luqueño 2025). In Collaborator X’s case, her mother’s limited educational opportunities as a young immigrant mother informed her parental advocacy and the deliberate strategies she engaged in to create positive generational change and equip her daughter with tools to succeed academically. Similarly, Collaborator U emphasized the ways his parents created a sense of possibility around higher education, despite financial insecurity:

“Despite being low-income, my parents always made me feel like attending college was an option. When considering the costs of attending an HSU, their perspective was never ‘I don’t know if we can afford it,’ rather ‘Focus on getting in and we’ll find a way to make things work.’”

Here, Collaborator U underscores the socioemotional scaffolding his parents provided—prioritizing hope and agency over financial limitation. Their belief in education functioned as a stabilizing force, anchoring his persistence through structural uncertainty.

This pattern of familial influence was echoed throughout the pláticas, with participants frequently attributing their educational ambition and emotional resilience to their mothers. As Collaborator W noted: “I think in all of our cases our mothers are instrumental. The impetus came from mothers. The stability for education seems to be in one way or another our mothers.”

While familial support provided an important foundation for several plática members, other participants emphasized that perseverance and a refusal to accept limitations were equally vital to their educational journeys. Accordingly, resilience was actively forged by past experiences of navigating rejection and structural barriers, but also by the need to explore new paths and create new opportunities for ourselves, often without a clear roadmap as low-income, FGC students. Several participants described how their educational journeys required them to persist through rejection, isolation, and the absence of clear role models and mentors. Resilience often took the form of risk-taking, self-discovery, and an unwavering belief in their own potential. Collaborator Z, for example, described a personal ethos of exploration and curiosity that propelled him forward, despite fear or uncertainty:

“I think for me, I’m just very curious about what I can do. I was a blue-collar worker and now a researcher, and I’m doing it well, and… I didn’t know that I had that in me, so I started discovering more and more things when I dared to take risks and go into different sorts of fertile soils [life directions]…, so [this] is a north star for me. I’m just very curious about life and want to know what’s around when I open that next door… like what’s going to be there? And so that motivates me a lot…Sometimes it’s scary. And you think, no, they’re gonna say, no, you have to sort of say, I’m just gonna go for it. I’m gonna open that door, even if it’s scary…I’ve learned enough to know…you can fall sometimes. But it’s pretty exciting. Curiosity drives me.”

Collaborator Z revealed a deep commitment to growth through experimentation, taking risks, and shouldering rejection. His resilience is not framed as stoicism but as a dynamic, self-reflective process rooted in creativity, risk, and hope. His words reflect a navigational capital (Yosso 2005) that enables him to explore and succeed across multiple contexts. Collaborator Y articulated a similar mindset, describing her persistence as a refusal to be derailed by doubt or denial:

“I just refused to accept no as an answer, and that’s always been my mindset. My mindset has gotten me to that next step, you know. Throughout my entire educational journey and my career, I would say to myself, ‘No you can do this. You have to believe that you can do this, that there is a way forward.’”

Collaborator W, too, emphasized how embracing risk functioned as a protective factor. For him, moving forward required a deliberate openness to uncertainty:

“Taking risks is really important. If an opportunity shows itself, but it might be risky to take it—take it anyway. That’s been kind of my philosophy. If you don’t take a risk, you get in a rut. It’s very comfortable to stay doing the same thing.”

Collaborator W’s insight unveils the tension many FGC students from low-income backgrounds face: navigating safety and comfort versus pushing boundaries and expanding opportunity. His philosophy mirrors a broader pattern among participants that portrays resilience as an ongoing negotiation between material constraints and growth, security and aspiration. These narratives also illustrate how resilience among [former] FGC students is both collective and individual in nature, rooted in family in some cases but also cultivated through psychological processes including risk-taking, self-belief, and intrinsic curiosity in other contexts.

4.2. Research Question 2 Results: How Have We Drawn upon Both Dominant and Nondominant Forms of Capital to Persist and Advance Through Our Respective Higher Education and Professional Pathways?

4.2.1. Theme 2: Accessing Elite Schooling and Higher Education by Happenstance

While personal drive and familial support served as critical sources of motivation and stability for plática participants, many also emphasized that their access to elite institutions and long-term academic mobility was shaped by unexpected, often serendipitous encounters with individuals or programs that opened doors. These moments that often occurred outside of formalized pathways became pivotal turning points, setting off trajectories that ultimately led participants to institutions like [Selective University].

In many cases, these opportunities emerged not through structured guidance or institutional pipelines, but through fleeting interactions, discretionary decisions, and unplanned moments of recognition. Participants recounted being noticed by teachers or mentors, being identified by scholarship programs, or encountering elite preparatory schools by happenstance—coincidental or serendipitous events that altered the trajectory of their educational experiences. Such moments of happenstance frequently occurred within systems where access to these opportunities was neither guaranteed nor equitably distributed.

Collaborator U, for instance, recalled that his college trajectory shifted dramatically because of one teacher’s initiative: “My AP world history teacher just pulled me aside and was like, ‘Hey, have you heard of QuestBridge? You should consider applying.’” Without that timely suggestion, Collaborator U may never have learned about the program or its potential to connect him to elite institutions—an example of how critical information is often unevenly shared and dependent on teacher discretion.

For Collaborator V, early access to private boarding school environments was similarly catalyzed by educators who recognized her potential and connected her to opportunity:

“In first grade, I had a teacher who served on the board of a private school in Illinois. She got me admitted because my test scores were out of the norm at that stage. Then, in middle school, A Better Chance, a nonprofit scholarship program compiled a list of students based on their Iowa test of basic skills and GPAs. Those two identifiers brought me to their attention, and they contacted my school. They worked with the Chicago Public Schools district. One of my teachers in the gifted program I attended from 6–8th grade told me, ‘You should go to this information session. Kids that go to this program, 90% of them go on to college, and you should do it.’”

These institutional agents—non-kin individuals who are well positioned to provide social capital and institutional support (Stanton-Salazar 2011)—played a crucial role in helping Collaborator V enter academic spaces that were otherwise closed off to most students in her public school district. Her story reflects how gaining institutional access often depends on a constellation of factors, including test scores, teacher advocacy, and the right person noticing at the right time. For Collaborator Z, the path to higher education did not begin with a college counselor or high school advisor, but with a community college instructor who believed in his intellectual potential:

“I actually came from a community where … all the males were dropouts. I don’t know one single male that was in high school in my neighborhood…I was a high-school dropout who read a lot. When I went to take a practice test at a local community center for high school equivalency, an instructor there noticed I had high test scores, which I attributed to my voracious reading habits. She encouraged me to take the real tests and motivated me to enroll in college. It all happened within the span of three weeks. I went from a blue-collar worker to a college student. A complete change of life with no prior plan, other than this instructor’s belief in me that I could excel academically.”

His story illustrates how transformational access to college can be and how quickly lives can change when opportunity is made visible. Collaborator Y described how her entry into elite education was sparked by a one-time visit from an admissions officer who happened to stop by her middle school:

“I’m being honest—my very revealing answer to that question is, I feel it was divine intervention that I was recruited. At the time, [elite boarding school] had these admissions officers who would go to different schools. If they came to [my city], they’d go to all the private schools—they had a list. They’d hit all these old schools. Now, if they had time and wanted to, they might go to one or two public schools with gifted and talented programs, but they weren’t required to. That year, an Asian American male admissions officer—who has since become a surgeon with his own practice, but at the time was working admissions—said he had time to come to my middle school, which had a vanguard program. The counselor there pulled a dozen of us into a room—students of color—and they showed us a short video. I just remember seeing small class sizes, people rowing, and snow. I had never seen those things before.”

Feeling disconnected from the school she was enrolled in at the time, Collaborator Y filled out a card requesting more information. She took a risk and applied to [elite boarding school] without telling her parents and was ultimately admitted. Reflecting on the moment, she explained how that single presentation altered the course of her life:

“My orientation at [elite boarding school] was: This is my shot, and I cannot screw it up. I cannot do anything that would jeopardize this chance. I have to make a different life for myself and my family. So when I went to [Selective University], in many ways, I felt like I had already had a lot of preparation. For one, I didn’t have to adjust to living away from home—that was huge.”

Her experience underscores the downstream effects of chance encounters with elite academic institutions as well as the preparedness for college and acquisition of cultural capital that can result when students are granted early access to those spaces (Jack 2019).

These stories highlight a key contradiction in the myth of meritocracy that is rampant in American society, that access to elite institutions often hinges less on effort or innate ability, and more on whether a student happens to be noticed, supported, or connected to the right opportunity at the right time. These moments are rarely the result of fair, transparent systems; instead, they emerge from a patchwork of informal access points that privilege the visible or the strategically positioned. This is not to say that participants did not earn their place in these academic institutions. On the contrary, their perseverance and determination were evident. However, it is important to recognize how their reflections highlight the precariousness of these pathways, demonstrating how easily they could have been missed and how much depended on a single teacher’s suggestion or a recruiter’s spontaneous school visit. As such, happenstance becomes a quiet but powerful force in shaping educational mobility for FGC students. It reveals the systemic gaps in support, highlights the randomness of institutional recognition, and ultimately calls into question the idea that access to elite colleges or capital-rich systems is the product of merit alone.

4.2.2. Theme 3: The Role of Cultural and Social Capital in Upward Mobility

While familial support and inner resilience may have supported us early on in our educational journeys and happenstance may have opened the door to opportunity, our narratives revealed how social and cultural capital were key to accessing further professional opportunities and climbing the social ladder. Plática participants emphasized that upward mobility was not simply a function of grit or intelligence but was often shaped by access to knowledge, networks, and norms (i.e., cultural and social capital; Bourdieu 1986). These forms of capital became institutionalized in the form of credentials and degrees, and ultimately translated to professional influence, career success, and the ability to help others succeed.

Once inside [Selective University], participants encountered formal and informal networks that acted as scaffolding for opportunity. These social ecosystems provided mentorship, industry access, and exposure to elite professional cultures that had previously been out of reach.

Collaborator U emphasized how the social infrastructure of [Selective University] itself functioned as a powerful lever for professional growth:

“At [Selective University], the people you meet and the social connections play the largest role in increasing your social mobility. I think [Selective University] has a lot of student clubs that facilitate that. For a moment, I was interested in business and finance, and there were so many clubs on campus that mirrored the rigor of trying to go through the interviews in those field. Because of the name and because of the way the clubs are set up, you get to experience what it would be like to find a full-time job … years before you even try to do that for real. You’re forced to mingle with so many different people to even get those opportunities on campus, that when it comes time to navigate those experiences later on … it comes a lot easier. There is a lot of intermingling at [Selective University] between different [social] groups, and I think you quickly learn how to navigate a lot of different social situations which is incredibly valuable afterwards.”

Collaborator U’s experience illustrates how elite institutions often embed social capital into their infrastructure through clubs, mentorship programs, and institutional prestige, which can accelerate students’ professional and cultural fluency.

Collaborator W’s story similarly reflects how relational ties, formed over years of scholarly exchange, helped open professional doors and even shape institutional trajectories:

“I eventually found my way to the university and became the first in my family to graduate from college. I didn’t even know about [Selective University] until I got interested in psychology and started studying it. Back then, [Selective University]’s psychology program was world-renowned. If you were a psych major, everything you read seemed to be coming out of [Selective University]. But I never imagined I’d ever get there—I didn’t even know where it was. To me, it was just the place where all the famous psychologists lived and worked. Eventually, I found my way to [Redacted Western Public University] and joined the faculty there. I became a full professor. At one point, someone from the President’s Office at [Selective University], an old friend, called me. He’d heard I was looking to leave [Redacted Western Public University]. I wanted to move for family reasons. I had a young child and didn’t like living in Los Angeles anymore. So, I came to [Selective University] initially as a visiting faculty member, and eventually I moved as a full professor…Personal connections have been really, really vital for me.”

Collaborator W’s entry into an established faculty position was not only the result of academic excellence, but also decades of relationship-building within scholarly circles. His journey reinforces how sustained participation in knowledge-producing spaces can parlay social capital into institutional legitimacy and leadership roles.

Beyond formal pipelines, participants described how identity-based support systems served as crucial sources of belonging, mentorship, and resilience over time. In other cases, affinity groups and supportive networks rooted in shared identities offered long-term emotional and professional sustenance. Collaborator V reflected on a largely [Selective University] alumni women’s group that helped her persist over decades:

“I’ve been part of a women’s group for almost 30 years. It started with 10 of us, and went down to 5 relatively early. We would meet once a month, and our goal was simply to remain working women, even as we became mothers. That ended up becoming an important form of support. We weren’t even in the same career field! That emotional support navigating parenthood and work led to a lot of group success. Four of the five are CEOs, one managing her own consultancy, and one is a teacher. We’ve been there through thick and thin—marriage, divorce, the loss of family members, the sandwich generation. It’s been super important.”

These intimate relationships supported both career longevity and emotional survival, especially in spaces where women were underrepresented. Collaborator V also reflected on how institutional prestige and professional sponsorship helped her translate educational institutional capital into executive leadership:

“Almost every place I worked had somebody from [Selective University] who worked there, who assumed that if I could get my degree there, I was probably going to be halfway decent. So that was helpful. And I had role models—I was really lucky… I worked for a mentor out of law school… He supported us to learn our trade and gave us opportunities to do important work… Another was a Latino general counsel who was a [Selective University] undergrad… I asked him for an informational interview… by the end of lunch, he offered me a job. I said, “I totally was not going to ask you for a job,” and he said, “You didn’t ask—I offered.” So I went to work for him, and I learned from his playbook what to do to advance in my profession.”

Collaborator V’s story demonstrates how cultural fluency (i.e., knowing how to ask for help, how to conduct informational interviews) combined with institutional affiliation and mentorship to create career momentum. Importantly, these were skills she began developing during her work-study job at [Selective University]’s Career Center—yet another example of how institutional spaces can function as early incubators of social capital:

“I’ve been really fortunate with some of the good people I’ve happened to work with. One of the key things I mentioned was informational interviewing. I worked at the Career Center for seven years when I was a student at [Selective University]. I went there to get a part-time job through work-study as a freshman… And basically, those good people made me go to every single workshop at the [Selective University] Career Center as well as learn how to do informational interviews. Even when I was at [large technology company], I remember reaching out to general counsels at McDonald’s and tech companies like eBay, asking how they navigated the growth of a company that was scaling so fast, or how they handled growing internationally. A lot of those basic skills—being able to make a cold call, get on the phone, and ask for help—were things I learned at [Selective University].”

Through these narratives, it becomes clear that social networks were not merely supplemental; they were also central to our career development and long-term path toward mobility. These connections helped us enter and remain in spaces of influence and affluence. The institutional name recognition, access to mentorship, and peer networks enabled plática participants to translate educational credentials into positions of leadership, stability, and to have broader impact within our social circles, our academic institution, and in our academic field or career sector.

4.3. Research Question 3 Results: How Have We Experienced Upward Mobility, and How Has This Experience of Boundary Crossing Shaped Our Path over Time?

Theme 4: Upward Mobility as a Collective and Continuous Process

While upward mobility is often framed as an individual pursuit, plática members consistently emphasized that their journeys were deeply embedded in collective obligations, intergenerational responsibility, and familial relationships that continued well beyond graduation or career entry. Rather than a linear outcome, mobility unfolded as a lifelong, recursive process that they navigated alongside and often for their families and communities.

A central tension that emerged was the cultural dissonance between the collectivist values rooted in participants’ family lives and the relatively individualistic expectations that can arise from elite academic and professional environments. These opposing logics generated persistent emotional strain, especially when participants were expected to simultaneously perform at a high level while staying tethered to familial responsibilities. Collaborator Z spoke candidly about this ongoing balancing act, describing how the pressures of life within academic institutions were difficult to shoulder while dealing with real-world obligations:

“One of my parents almost died, and I was dealing with a lot of other stressors at the same time. I was also partially supporting my family, financially. I don’t think people [who’ve not had similar experiences] really understand what that’s like. They just expect you to produce—‘do this, do that’—and when you’re not producing, there’s this pressure and judgment.”

As upwardly mobile adults, our college and career experiences sometimes created distance from family members who had vastly disparate access to opportunities. Maintaining connection and ties to our origins in the face of changing familial relations and dynamics was often a consequence of social mobility that emerged when we left home. Collaborator W’s experience with his younger sibling exemplified this challenge:

“I certainly understand that from a personal standpoint, in terms of family members that just didn’t have the same opportunities, they don’t know what it’s like to go away to college, earn a degree, or to get a job that is different from most people who know you. The social, psychological, and economic distance that this creates, and the feeling that you still feel part of the community, but where people you know no longer treat you like a person from the community anymore…can be difficult. My youngest brother really struggled with this. He would say things like, ‘You’re not from here anymore, you’re different.’ I helped him financially, and it just never seemed to improve our dynamic. He always had that space that kept us at a distance.”

In addition, Collaborator V noted that as she moved further along in her career, she began to notice subtle ways in which prestigious work settings introduced misunderstanding or dissonance for her family:

“[My mother] used to say, “I thought you went to college so you could have an easier life.” She was really surprised at how much I worked. At a law firm where I worked in Chicago (I was staying at my mom’s). I’d work 80–100 hours a week because I was new to the work and I needed an offer of full-time employment to repay my student loans. At [large technology company], especially when it was growing fast, there were times when I’d be pulling all-nighters. As a lawyer in general, there are plenty of times when you’re working on something that’s an important deal for a company, and you’re just working all hours. It wasn’t that much of an easier life. Although I always felt it’s a lot easier to work 60 plus hours in an office than to work in the fields under the burning sun like they [my parents] did when they came from Puerto Rico. But it was hard for my family to relate, and the more success, in fact, the harder it was. My mother would come to all of the award ceremonies she could when I was a kid, but as I got older, she just did not feel comfortable in some of these environments. Like when you end your service as a trustee at [Selective University], they have a special dinner, and your family’s invited; she wouldn’t feel comfortable coming to those things. It was hard for her to relate to the communities, concerns, and the pressures of the positions I’ve had.”

At the same time, some plática members expressed that their family histories were driving forces behind their pursuit of higher education, highlighting how social mobility can be a shared familial goal. The dreams, sacrifices, and missed opportunities of previous generations formed an enduring engine of persistence. Collaborator X described her education as an embodied continuation of her matrilineal lineage, carrying a profound sense of intergenerational responsibility and gratitude:

“I often reflect on the opportunities the women in my family never had the time or resources to pursue. At times, it feels as though my mom, tías, and abuelitas are living part of their dreams through my own journey at [Selective University] and all the life-changing experiences I’ve been fortunate to explore, like studying abroad or interning at the state capitol. I carry their hopes, sacrifices, and ambitions with me at every step of my path. In many ways, my aspirations aren’t mine alone—I see them as seeds of possibility that have been planted across generations before me. Being able to share this journey with my family is what truly drives me.”

This reciprocal flow of support—families investing in participants’ success and participants reinvesting in their families—emerged as a defining feature of social mobility, not as an individual trajectory but as a collective, recursive process. Collaborator Y’s story illustrates this cyclical dynamic. Even after achieving significant financial success in tech, her sense of responsibility to her parents never waned; it deepened as she embarked on launching her own venture firm:

“My parents made such a huge sacrifice for me. We had loans for [elite boarding school] and [Selective University]. I went from [elite boarding school] to [Selective University], then worked in government for 10 years without making much money. My parents still helped me along the way. Later, I moved to [large city in western U.S.], joined [large ridesharing company], and started making real money. I sold some shares early, paid off all my debts and my parents’ debts…Now, in 2025, I’ve invested everything in my firm and am trying to secure contracts. And through all this, my parents are still supporting me. It feels like a full circle: they helped me, then I helped them, and now they’re helping me again. I’ve always believed my money is our money, and sharing brings more back. I truly believe my purpose is to show up for my community in this space. It’s hard, expensive, and even harder to do it with integrity. I won’t ask others to work for free. I’m deeply grateful for my parents—my life partners.”

Her reflections emphasize that upward mobility for FGC students is not merely a matter of personal advancement; it entails negotiating enduring familial obligations. In addition, her narrative reveals how extraordinary professional achievements often remain entangled with the systemic exclusions of elite industries. For example, the ability to take unpaid years to gain traction in venture capital—a pathway inaccessible to most people of color—illustrates how privilege and inequality continue to shape access to spaces that purport to reward merit:

“When [large ridesharing company] went public, I did well but after taxes and stock drops, it was less. My success made me ask: what now? At [large ridesharing company], I saw how powerful investors are—they make things happen—and I chose to be one of them to have a bigger impact beyond just one company. But it’s hard and expensive to start a venture firm, and 96% of capital is controlled by white men who don’t want to change the system. The industry expects free work—something I did for five years—but I could only afford that because I had money. Most people of color can’t.”

Across these narratives, upward social mobility emerges not as a one-time leap, but as an ongoing shared negotiation and process shaped by reciprocity, sacrifice, and the emotional complexity of crossing social class and institutional boundaries. Participants’ reflections exemplify that success was not a departure from families or communities but an attempt to remain connected to family and community, even when the road forward was marked by new tensions. Social mobility often involved fulfilling multigenerational commitments to family and community, an effort to transform not only our own futures but also those of the people who made our successes possible.

5. Discussion

This study explored how risk and resilience, as well as dominant and nondominant capital, interact to shape the educational, professional, and social mobility trajectories of first-generation, low-income Latine alumni, doctoral students, and senior faculty members affiliated with the same HSU. Through pláticas that embraced the multiplicity of our lived experiences we reflected not only on the challenges we faced, but also the personal and family-derived strengths that sustained us on our academic and career paths. In addition, by incorporating cross-generational perspectives and temporal reflections, our study provides a longitudinal analysis. Plática collaborators reflected on their early schooling, college years, and current professional lives, which enabled us to trace how mobility unfolds across different life stages. We argue that for low-income, FGC students, social mobility is not a straightforward, meritocratic ascent but rather a nonlinear, relational process that is often catalyzed by chance, sustained through access to cultural and social capital, and commonly shared with family. While our families and communities provided rich forms of cultural and emotional support (e.g., values of perseverance) it was through our access to dominant cultural and social capital at [Selective University] that we were able to convert that resilience into forms of mobility recognized by mainstream institutions.

5.1. Social Mobility as a Collective and Relational Negotiation

A consistent theme that emerged across plática participants’ narratives was the deeply relational nature of social mobility. Plática participants did not pursue upward mobility solely for individual advancement; their educational and professional pursuits were often anchored in responsibilities to family and community, intergenerational sacrifice, and reciprocal care. Success was construed as a shared aspiration; it was measured not just by income or prestige, but by the ability to care for and financially support loved ones, give back to community, and remain connected to home. These narratives complicate traditional notions of mobility by highlighting the relational and collective dimensions of success that is particularly common for Latine families and other communities of color where familism is a salient cultural value (Azpeitia and Bacio 2022; Sabogal et al. 1987). Rather than a linear, individualistic journey of “moving up,” our FGC plática participants describe staying connected to their families and using their newly gained access to resources to support them. In addition, it is important to recognize that some plática participants experienced feelings of dissonance regarding their privilege and opportunities, especially in light of their families’ sacrifices, as well as feelings of alienation from their families or communities of origin. These tensions reveal how social mobility is not merely about access or achievement, but about negotiating competing logics of community belonging, relatability, and identity (Cuevas 2024; Osborne 2024).

To better support Latine FGC students as they navigate the complex relational dynamics of social mobility, HSUs can implement culturally sustaining practices that affirm family and community connections as sources of strength rather than barriers to success. For instance, family-engaged academic and career planning that integrates family narratives into student support services—such as career centers, internship programs, and post-graduate advising—can name and normalize familial obligations and collective definitions of success. U.S. higher education tends to promote independence as the cultural ideal, which often fuels a mismatch for FGC students who tend to come from families where interdependence is a salient cultural orientation (Chang et al. 2020; Stephens et al. 2012). By explicitly affirming the essential role of family in FGC students’ education and career trajectories, HSUs can combat this cultural mismatch and help students see their professional journey as aligned with, rather than separate from, their family. Additionally, HSUs can develop relational mentoring networks that pair Latine FGC students with peers, alumni, and staff who share similar cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. These connections provide space to discuss the relational dimensions of social mobility (e.g., managing family expectations, sustaining meaningful ties to home).

5.2. The Uneven Terrain of Opportunity: Chance, Structure, and Access

A recurring theme across participants’ narratives was the critical role of happenstance, or moments that appeared serendipitous but were in fact deeply shaped by unequal structures of access. Several plática participants attributed key turning points in their trajectories, such as gaining admission to college prep and boarding schools and elite universities, receiving scholarships, or securing certain jobs, to chance encounters or moments of luck. Yet these moments were not purely random; they were contingent on being visible to someone with institutional knowledge, on being in the right space at the right time, or on attending a school with the resources to offer guidance as well as gaining the knowledge and skills to be successful at more demanding professional levels. Importantly too is the fact that when seemingly happenstance opportunities occurred the cost was that participants often had to risk entering unknown and comfortable spaces alone without the support of family or community to take advantage of what the opportunities had to offer.

These narratives reveal that what is often perceived as luck may be the product of structural advantage or disadvantage. Such inflection points expose the myth of equal access. Many students with similar or greater potential may never encounter these moments of intervention for reasons that include being overlooked or under-resourced. Gatekeeping of elite opportunity extends beyond admissions metrics or merit; it also involves who has access to critical information, who is connected to advocacy networks, and who is invited into elite spaces.

Several plática participants emphasized how these seemingly ordinary encounters reshaped the course of their lives. For example, one participant reflected that her admission to [Selective University] felt “accidental,” made possible only because a teacher at her well-resourced public school encouraged her to apply and helped her through the process. Without that specific guidance, she likely never would have considered the institution at all. Her experience elucidates how access to social and institutional capital (e.g., advising, mentorship, and application support) is unevenly distributed and often determines who gains entry and knowledge about navigating elite educational and professional pipelines. In many cases, attending selective institutions then became a gateway to even more exclusive forms of capital: prestigious internships, well-connected alumni networks, and professional pathways that remain closed to many equally talented FGC students from under-resourced schools and communities. Thus, while these pivotal moments are often remembered as fortunate coincidences, they reflect deeply entrenched inequities in how opportunity is structured and circulated. Our narratives reveal a form of structured happenstance shaped by unequal systems wherein upward mobility is not the result of merit but is contingent on almost random access to the opportunities such systems mobilize and reinforce for their traditional white upper middle-class participants.

To address the uneven terrain of opportunity, HSUs must move beyond acknowledging inequity to actively disrupting the structures that make access to opportunity dependent on chance. Institutions can work to demystify the hidden curriculum—the tacit knowledge about professional development, graduate school, and career advancement that is often circulated informally within privileged networks. Research has shown that the information sources that are most critical for success are often connected to pre-existing relationships and informal guides—who you know matters most (Grim et al. 2024; Payne et al. 2023). HSUs should institutionalize mentoring networks that connect Latine FGC students with alumni and professionals who have navigated similar pathways. Such networks can serve as intentional mechanisms for transmitting the social and cultural capital needed to access and thrive within higher education and in professional fields that remain selective and exclusionary (Payne et al. 2023). To sustain these efforts, institutions should provide dedicated support—such as training, stipends, and dedicated staff coordination—to prevent the additional labor from falling on students or alumni volunteers (Rosales et al. 2023). Additionally, career centers and cultural community centers can host panels and workshop series where alumni share their trajectories and offer concrete strategies for securing internships, scholarships, and graduate programs. By embedding these equity-focused, transparent programs and intentionally creating more moments of happenstance, HSUs can transform access to opportunity from an unpredictable encounter into a deliberate process that expands social mobility beyond luck.

5.3. Implications for Higher Education Policy and Practice

Our findings suggest that institutional support structures for low-income, FGC students in higher education remain incomplete, often narrowly focused on academic performance or financial aid while neglecting the cultural and relational complexities that shape students’ trajectories. As previous scholars have noted (Covarrubias et al. 2019; Vasquez-Salgado et al. 2015), to support FGC students more holistically, institutions must recognize and respond to the multifaceted forms of labor these students undertake, especially the emotional work of navigating cultural mismatches, the ongoing financial and caregiving responsibilities they can carry for their extended families while in college and beyond, and the post-graduation challenges of integrating into professional spaces where they are often largely underrepresented. Developing mentorship models that honor students’ relational contexts is essential, as is creating culturally sustaining spaces that affirm collectivist values and familial shared visions of success. Moreover, institutions should expand critical institutional capital (e.g., career development programming and alumni networks) that continues beyond graduation, offering guidance for navigating long-term professional advancement in fields and work environments where FGC students may lack pre-existing connections or representation.

While our counterstories highlight the resilience and resourcefulness that characterize FGC students’ educational trajectories, they also provide a more nuanced understanding of upward mobility. We thrived not just because of intrinsic and community-based assets, but because of access to institutional capital: elite schooling, institutional prestige, and well-connected networks. Thus, our achievement as FGC students does not negate inequality; it illuminates it. Wealth disparity persists in part because access to the capital reserved by institutions for the privileged remains unequal. Not all low-income, FGC students are encouraged to apply to elite schools (or any college at all) or guided in application processes. Relatively few are mentored and formally connected to professional networks. Acknowledging this complexity challenges both the myth of meritocracy and the tendency to flatten our experiences into simplistic, linear narratives of resilience and achievement. Instead, it calls for a more honest and nuanced understanding of the structural conditions under which upward mobility occurs, and for whom.

We provide these counterstories not to reinforce narratives of exceptionalism or suggest that attending an HSU is the only or ultimately desired pathway to success. Moreover, attending an HSU does not guarantee economic security. What this admission does offer, however, is access to dominant capital: critical social networks and institutional resources that otherwise serve as gatekeepers limiting any access for low-income, first-generation student communities. Our intention is not to elevate elite academia as the only route to upward social mobility, but to illustrate how we navigated these often exclusionary institutions, to be transparent about the tensions that arise with social mobility, and to question what it means to succeed within systems that have historically excluded many from our communities. In doing so, we hope to expand the narrative about what it costs to “make it,” and what it means to do so with integrity, authenticity, and purpose.