Empowering Students to Complete Their Education
FirstGens is a Royal Award-winning social enterprise closing higher-education outcome gaps for first-generation students.
Why?
University should be a launchpad, not a barrier to opportunities. But for many of the 500,000+ young people who are the first in their family to go to university, the promise falls short.
In 2022, the Higher Education Regulator identified first-generation students as at risk of unequal opportunities, which shows in:
- Wellbeing: More likely to experience depressive symptoms (NIH, 2022)
- Attainment: Less likely to achieve a 1st or 2:1 (Oxford Review of Education, 2020)
- Continuation: More likely to drop out (Nuffield Foundation, 2020)
- Graduate outcomes: Less likely to join a graduate programme (OfS, 2019)
Our Practise
We provide end-to-end support, empowering students to navigate university successfully while working with institutions to embed inclusive strategies. We drive systems change, shifting policies, challenging mental models, and ensuring resources are equitably distributed. We believe universities are key sites for transformation, where targeted support creates lasting impact for students and the sector.
How we work Our work is grounded in cultural reproduction and critical pedagogy, informed by equity-focused approaches. We combine evidence-based research, including our Innovate UK-funded study identifying key drop-out points for first-generation students, with empirical research on educational inequality.
When it comes to student delivery, we prioritise co-designed programmes, engaged pedagogy, and community protection through lived-experience policies. Students are empowered with political education and practical tools to navigate university, advocate for themselves, and build confidence to complete their degrees.
Our institutional consultancy drives systemic change through First-Generation Awareness Training, audits, policy guidance, and collaborative networks. Universities benefit by improving student outcomes, meeting Access and Participation Plan targets, and demonstrating measurable impact.
We offer:
1. Student support: subscription access to the Navigating University programme, including e-learning modules and a peer community. Students experience structured guided through the hidden curriculum, through culturally relevant content, delivered by our unique network of first-generation graduates across the UK. UCAS has endorsed our work, reaching half a million students annually with our First-generation Guide.
FirstGens Futures Funds: Working with organisations to provide scholarships and bursaries.
2. Institutional consultancy: Tailored support for universities, including audits, gap analyses, policy and strategy guidance, and ongoing toolkits and networks to drive systemic change.
3. Training: Capacity-building programmes for university teams, focusing on inclusive best practice and First-Generation Awareness Training for staff.
Who we work with
Students -trusted by students across 62 UK universities Universities, employers, and partners across the UK, from small institutions to national networks. We focus on driving equity, improving student progression, and creating systemic change.
We view our service as providing the foundations, while the organisations we partner with are the resources that nurture growth, creating the conditions for systemic change. This ensures every first-generation student can plant their seeds, their dreams, and have the support, environment, and resources to root, rise, and flourish, turning their dreams into reality through education.
Our SEED values:
Student-focused, Equity, Empowering and Direction.
