When 100 percent of last year’s First Scholars returned to the University of Kentucky as sophomores this fall, First Scholars Director Matthew Deffendall knew the reason had to be more than the free food, cool T-shirts or even the new lounge where students can study, socialize and ask questions right outside of his office in Funkhouser.

“We’ve created a community for students,” he said of the first-generation college student program’s success. “We have created a place where students feel comfortable. We’re that safety net here to get them through the initial challenge.”

The University of Kentucky has welcomed back all of last year’s First Scholars, while also ushering in a new class of 20 from around The Commonwealth.

Laramie Scott of Clinton County High School was among those selected to be in the 2011 First Scholars class.

“I feel very lucky and blessed to been chosen as a recipient of the First Scholars Scholarship,” said Scott. “This is a wonderful experience that will not only benefit me academically while I attend the University of Kentucky, but I will also gain life skills and friends that will last a lifetime.”

The First Scholars program, launched with a $1.1 million grant from the Texas-based Suder Foundation last fall, aims to raise graduation rates among students whose parents have no education beyond high school.

The grant provides each student with a partial scholarship, peer mentoring, additional academic support and campus involvement activities to help them stay in school and graduate.

According to Deffendall, this extra support is exactly what first-generation students need.

“One of the things in my research that has stuck with me is that if you remove all other factors — socioeconomic, gender and ethnicity — just the fact that a student is a first generation puts that student at risk,” Deffendall said. “The research shows that first-generation students lack the ‘college student role’ — the knowledge of how to make it in the system. They are missing that skill set and support mechanism.”

First-generation college students, who represent one in five incoming UK freshmen, lag behind the general college population in graduation and retention rates.

Of the class that entered in 2006, the first year such data was collected at UK, 59 percent of first-generation college students were still at UK in their third year, compared to more than 68 percent of the general student population. By 2008, over 63 percent of first-generation college students were still at UK in their third year.