A new research brief offers a stark portrait of the risks of being the first in your family to attend college. Only 20 percent of those "first-generation" college students earn bachelor's degrees by the time they're 25. For students from college-going families, that number is 43 percent.

A growing body of research illustrates the special vulnerabilities of being a first-generation college student. A report released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences provides reminders of those risks.

The study follows a nationally representative sample of students from 2002, when they were high school sophomores, until 2012. It examines the differences between first-generation students and students from families where at least one parent earned a bachelor's degree.

The study finds that while first-generation students had high educational aspirations, they risk falling behind their peers at many points in the transition from high school to college completion. They wait longer after high school to enroll in college, and they're far less likely to earn bachelor's degrees.

Read the source article at Education Week