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For years, studies have found that first-generation college students—those who do not have a parent with a college degree—lag other students on a range of education achievement factors.
“第一代大學生”是指那些父母沒有大學學位的大學生，多年以來，很多研究發現他們在一系列的教育成就方面落后于其他的學生。
Their grades are lower and their dropout rates are higher.
他們的成績比其他學生低、輟學率比他們高。
But since such students are most likely to advance economically if they succeed in higher education, colleges and universities have pushed for decades to recruit more of them.
但是鑒于這類學生只要在高等教育上取得成功，他們就更可能在經濟上到得提升，所以各大學院和大學幾十年來一直在努力招收更多這類的學生。
This has created "a paradox" in that recruiting first—generation students, but then watching many of them fail, means that higher education has "continued to reproduce and widen, rather than close" an achievement gap based on social class, according to the depressing beginning of a paper forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science.
但是根據即將在《心理科學》雜志上發表的一篇論文令人憂愁的開篇所說，這就出現了一個“矛盾現象”，招收那些第一代大學生，但隨后目睹他們中的很多人失敗，這就意味著高等教育“繼續在制造和擴大基于社會階級的成就差距，而不是縮小它。
But the article is actually quite optimistic, as it outlines a potential solution to this problem, suggesting that an approach (which involves a one-hour, next-to-no-cost program) can close 63 percent of the achievement gap (measured by such factors as grades) between first-generation and other students.
但是這篇文章事實上相當地樂觀，因為它概述了解決該問題的可能方案，提出的那個方案（它涉及一個一小時，幾乎無花費計劃）能縮小第一代大學生和其他學生之間的百分之六十三的成就差距（通過測量考試成績等因素）。
The authors of the paper are from different universities, and their findings are based on a study involving 147 students (who completed the project) at an unnamed private university.
這篇論文的作者來自不同的大學，他們的發現基于一項涉及某所私立大學147名學生的研究（這些學生完成了該研究項目）。
First generation was defined as not having a parent with a four-year college degree.
“第一代大學生”被定義為他們的父母沒有四年制大學學位。
Most of the first-generation students (59.1 percent) were recipients of Pell Grants, a federal grant for undergraduates with financial need, while this was true only for 8.6 percent of the students with at least one parent with a four-year degree.
大多數第一代大學生（59.1%）是佩爾助學金的獲得者，這是一個為需要經濟幫助的本科生設立的聯邦助學金。而事實上父母中至少有一方有四年制大學學位的學生中，僅有8.6%是該助學金的獲得者。
Their thesis—that a relatively modest intervention could have a big impact—was based on the view that first-generation students may be most lacking not in potential but in practical knowledge about how to deal with the issues that face most college students.
他們的論文表明相對適中的“介入”會有大影響，其著眼點是第一代大學生最缺乏的或許不是潛能，而是如何處理大多數大學生都面臨的問題的實際知識。
They cite past research by several authors to show that this is the gap that must be narrowed to close the achievement gap.
他們引用由若干作者做過的研究來表明，要想縮小第一代大學生與其他大學生之間的成就差距，就必須縮小他們在解決問題的實際知識上的差距。
Many first-generation students "struggle to navigate the middle-class culture of higher education, learn the 'rules of the game,' and take advantage of college resources," they write.
他們寫道，很多第一代大學生“努力想摸索高等教育的中產階級文化，學習它的‘游戲規則，’和利用大學資源。”
And this becomes more of a problem when colleges don't talk about the class advantages and disadvantages of different groups of students.
當大學沒有提及不同群體的大學生的階級優勢和劣勢時，成就差距就更成了一個問題。
"Because U.S. colleges and universities seldom acknowledge how social class can affect students' educational experiences, many first-generation students lack insight about why they are struggling and do not understand how students 'like them' can improve."
“因為美國高校很少承認社會階級對學生教育經歷的影響，許多第一代大學生看不透他們為什么在苦苦掙扎，也不明白‘像他們’這樣的學生該如何改善這一局面。”
