First-generation college students consistently lag behind their peers in many measures of preparation and academic confidence, according to a new report from the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles.

The report, which draws on 35 years of data collected in the institute’s annual survey of freshmen, says that first-generation students consistently rate their own mathematics and writing abilities lower than their peers rate the same skills. They also rate themselves lower in leadership abilities than do their peers whose parents attended college.

According to the report, as more black students have gone to college, the representation of first-generation African-American students has declined compared with that of other ethnic groups. With 70 percent of Hispanic adults lacking a college education, Hispanic students make up the highest proportion of first-generation students, at 38.2 percent, of any racial or ethnic group.

Over the last 35 years, the proportion of first-generation students who expect to earn advanced degrees has increased, though a significant gap remains between them and other students in this area. —Elizabeth F. Farrell