I am curious; did you scan the crowd at your graduation ceremony and wonder how many of your fellow graduates grew up low income? Did you spend a minute thinking about the low-income peers who began the first year of college with you but slipped away as you persisted? I know I had.

On almost any campus where I have been I have had some student -- or many -- talk about how they did not feel they belonged where they had landed.

The Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success, a new organization which includes that nation's most selective colleges and universities, recently surprised high school guidance counselors and college access and success organizations.

College access and success programs have mainly focused on supporting first-generation students but families must also focus on how to appropriately support their students. Family support (apart from money) is as critical as any campus-based intervention designed to retain and sustain students. The following are five things families of first-generation students should consider before and after lugging that last footlocker into a dormitory and kissing goodbye.

Dual enrollment programs are helping expose less-affluent school kids to college courses, with surprising effects.

There she is, sitting in her office surrounded by books and maybe a wilting plant. The Lonely Professor. Piles of papers on her desk and no one comes to see her. She has her lonely apple for lunch. She thinks about the students she sees in her classes and wonders what they are doing now.