THE writer says first-generation students are doing more with less information.
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FOR first-generation students in South Africa, gaining access to higher education is often framed as an achievement. Admission is celebrated as arrival. Graduation is treated as completion. For many who are the first in their families to enter university, these milestones mark not the end of the struggle, but the beginning of a different kind of labour. This labour is rarely named, but it is definitely consequential.
First-generation students do not simply study for a degree. They learn how to navigate unfamiliar institutions, decode unspoken rules, and translate expectations that others inherit quietly through family, school and social networks. They carry the cognitive and emotional work of figuring things out alone, often while managing financial pressure, family responsibility, and the weight of expectation that success must justify sacrifice.
This is the first-generation tax. Unlike their peers from more privileged educational backgrounds, first-generation students often arrive at university without fluency in its hidden curriculum. They may not know how to approach lecturers, ask for extensions, interpret feedback, or access support services without feeling exposed. Academic language, institutional processes and professional norms are learnt on the move, through trial and error and self-doubt. None of this reflects a lack of ability. It reflects unequal preparation.
For many first-generation students, university is not just an intellectual transition, but a cultural one. They must learn new ways of speaking, writing and presenting themselves, while navigating the tension of belonging to multiple worlds. At home, their studies may feel distant or abstract. On campus, they may feel out of place, unsure whether they truly belong. The emotional labour of straddling these spaces is constant and invisible. Financial strain compounds this burden.
First-generation students are more likely to juggle paid work alongside study, to worry about fees, accommodation and transport, and to carry responsibility for family members who depend on their success. Decisions that others make freely are weighed carefully against the costs and risks. Failure feels less like a setback and more like a threat to collective hope. Even success carries pressure. Achievement is rarely experienced as personal. It is communal, symbolic and loaded with expectation.
Graduates are expected to uplift families, repay the sacrifices made, and move quickly toward stability, even as the labour market remains volatile and unforgiving. The transition from education to work is often longer and more uncertain than promised, leaving first-generation graduates suspended between qualification and security. This is where the narrative of merit becomes particularly misleading. When first-generation graduates struggle to find work, the explanation is often framed in terms of skills, confidence or fit. What is overlooked is the absence of networks, mentors and informal pathways that smooth others' entry.
Jobs are not found only through formal applications, but through recommendations, exposure and social proximity. First-generation graduates must build these networks from scratch, often without guidance. Graduation, in this context, is not a finish line. It is an entry point into another maze. Universities are not unaware of these challenges, but institutional responses often remain fragmented. Support programmes exist, yet they are frequently framed as remediation rather than recognition of structural inequality.
First-generation students are positioned as lacking rather than as navigating environments that demand more of them to achieve the same outcomes. What is needed is a shift in perspective. First-generation students are not deficient. They are doing more with less information, fewer buffers, and higher stakes. Their success requires resilience, adaptability and determination, but these qualities should not be endlessly extracted without corresponding institutional support.
Recognition must extend beyond access to include sustained guidance, mentoring and career navigation that continues beyond graduation. This is not about lowering standards. It is about levelling conditions. If higher education is to function as a genuine engine of social mobility, then the work of navigation must be acknowledged and shared. Institutions must make the invisible visible. Employers must recognise potential beyond Western-normed etiquette. Policymakers must understand that access without support reproduces inequality in subtler forms.
First-generation graduates do not need praise for overcoming the odds. They need systems that do not require them to. Until we confront the hidden labour embedded in first-generation success, we will continue to mistake survival for achievement and access for equity. Graduation will remain a powerful symbol, but an incomplete promise. For many, the real work only begins once the certificate is in hand.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.