General Guidelines

_{Updated: March 31, 2023}

Some University of Iowa students, faculty, and staff come from low-income backgrounds. Many college students across the country report that they struggle not only to pay for their college education, but to provide for even basic needs such as housing and food. That said, it’s important not to equate being low-income with struggling for basic needs. They are not synonymous.

The ways in which we talk and create content about students who are low-income should convey compassion, inclusion, and sensitivity. Creating content about poverty and those who do not have the money they need is, of course, a sensitive matter and sometimes a source of shame and stigma for the student.

Participation in programs targeted to students who are low-income or whose parents are low-income (e.g., Pell-eligible or receiving Pell) are common proxies for low-income. Proxies are used primarily because measures related to students' economic well-being are often unobserved in the higher education context, as parental income/wealth is highly confidential.

While these categorizations or proxies can be helpful in demonstrating context, they are only proxies and not equivalent to low-income. For example, only U.S. citizens and green card-holders are Pell-eligible, so this would not refer to undocumented students.

There are several terms that are often used in the context of discussing students of low-income background. These include:

Socioeconomic status. Tends to refer to a combination of factors related to a student's social class. In the context of students, this typically includes family income, parental education (e.g., first-generation status), and parental occupation.

Underserved. Underserved students are defined as those who do not receive equitable resources as other students in the academic pipeline. Typically, these groups of students include low-income, racial/ethnic minorities (people of color or students of color is the preferred use, not minorities), among others.

• • Races and ethnicities that are included: African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Hispanic/Latinx, and Native Hawaiian, and/other Pacific Islander.
  • Historically underserved students are defined as low-income students, and students of color.
  • First-generation college students, at the University of Iowa, are students who do not have a parent or legal guardian who has completed a four-year degree. It is important to note that this definition does not take into account many nuances associated with first-generation identity, such as:
    • International students
    • Students whose parents earned a degree from outside the U.S.

The backgrounds and experiences of first-generation students are diverse in nature, and it should never be assumed that all first-gen students have a single attribute or trait in common.

In addition, the term first-generation is not synonymous with low-income, and these two terms should never be used interchangeably. Even though first-generation students may face a unique set of challenges in their college transition and completion efforts, refrain from referencing first-gen students only through a lens of deficit, as first-gen students have many unique assets that contribute to their success.

First-gen is acceptable on second reference.

The term underserved differs from underrepresented in that underrepresented refers to racial and ethnic populations that are represented at disproportionately low levels in higher education.

Underrepresented is not the same as marginalized. Marginalized means that people have been historically left out of conversations or excluded from opportunities—and not by their own choice.