After an in-depth literature review, the research questions were specified and a set of hypotheses was drawn up. Based on established questionnaires such as the German social survey [“Sozialerhebung”; (4, 22)], a first draft of the questionnaire was created to address these hypotheses. The questionnaire was divided into five sections: 1. demographics, employment and health insurance, 2. entry into studies and previous educational biography, 3. studies, 4. social background, 5. personality. In particular, the last two blocks were based on the Social Survey (4, 22) in order to ensure comparability. The questions created were entered into the online survey system LimeSurvey© (version 5.x) and subjected to a pre-test by the authors, doctoral students at the institute and 17 veterinary students representing the target population. Based on the comments and remarks, the questionnaire was finalized.

The study was approved by the Central Ethics Committee of the Freie Universität Berlin (No.: ZEA24039). Before completing the survey, the students were informed about the topic and the processing of the data. The data protection statements had to be confirmed by the participants.

The students were contacted by email via the General Students’ Committee of the five German universities or lecturers. They were able to take part in the survey via an open online link. The invitation containing the link was sent out at least two, at some faculties three times. In addition, the survey was advertised through social networks and WhatsApp groups. The survey was open from March 17 to May 7, 2023.

The questionnaire is available at an online and as Supplementary material repository¹ in the original language (German); it contained 58 questions. The majority of the questions were single-choice, often ordinal (Likert) scales. Some questions were multiple-choice options or short free text fields. Not all participants had to answer all questions due to filter questions. Completing the survey took around 15 min on average. Apart from the filter-based questions, all were mandatory, but the default answer for some Likert scales was “no response,” so participants did not have to answer it.

Section 1 (demographics, employment and health insurance) was comprised of 11 questions, mainly on demographic data. In addition to age, gender, marital status, childcare, data on finances, employment, the extent of employment, the reasons for employment, the influence of employment, and health insurance was gathered.

Section 2 contained 31 questions on the choice of study, admission and current study status. The place of study, start of studies and semester were asked at the beginning of the section. This was followed by questions on the highest school-leaving qualification, the date on which the qualification was obtained and the average grade. Students were also asked about lower school-leaving qualifications and previous vocational training and other previous courses of study.

In Section 3, participants were asked eight study-related questions assessing the perception and planning of participants. The first questions covered the self-assessment of the financial situation, as well as the organizational aspects in the last 12 months and during the practical year (PY). The PY is a period in veterinary studies during which students can choose internships in line with their specialist interests and specified standards. It comprises two semesters shortly before the end of their studies. Then, questions about organizational problems regarding changes to plans and last-minute appointments for exam preparation meetings were asked. This was followed by questions about thoughts of dropping out of the current veterinary degree course and, in the case of an affirmative answer option, the reasons for the thoughts of dropping out. The last question in this section included a question on the intention to write a doctoral thesis after finishing studies.

In Section 4, the educational background of their mother and father was obtained to classify the students into FGS and CGS. Although different relationship models are possible, e.g., that students grew up with two men as parents, we opted for the classic model in order to be able to compare these questions with comparable studies such as the German social survey.

Section 5 contained four questions adapted from the social survey on personality, as well as self-efficacy and a self-assessment of character. Analysis of the responses to these questions will be part of another publication. The survey ended with a free text field in which participants could ask questions or make suggestions.

At the end of the survey period, responses were exported to Microsoft Excel (version 2019) and checked for plausibility. Incompletely answered questionnaires were excluded from the analysis, as the decisive question for this study regarding the parents’ educational qualifications was at the end of the survey. Clearly implausible answers (like being born in 200) were excluded by setting the information to missing. The age (in years) was calculated from the year of birth to the date of participation. Free text answers, such as the course of educational training, were sorted into corresponding categories. Where necessary, categories were combined. For example, part-time jobs with 80–100 h per month and jobs with 100 or more hours per month were combined into one category (>80 h/ month) to increase the respective frequencies. On the basis of their parents’ qualifications, the students were categorized as FGS or CGS. Descriptive analyses were carried out using the statistics program SPSS (version 27). Differences between FGS and CGS were determined using the chi-square (CS) or Fisher’s Exact Test (FET). Differences concerning quantitative variables (age, beginning of studying, semester, FHSG) were analyzed using Mann–Whitney-U-tests (MWU) as these variables were not normally distributed. The data was presented graphically using histograms and bar charts.

A total of 2,078 people completed the survey. Of these, 553 did not complete the survey in full. Most people abandoned the survey on the first page (444 people). As the question about the parents’ education was only answered on the penultimate page and this question is of central importance for this manuscript, only the answers of individuals that fully completed the survey (n = 1,525) were analyzed. According to the German university enrolment data, 6,422 students were enrolled in veterinary medicine at the time of the survey. Therefore, 23.8% of veterinary students in Germany took part in the survey, varying between 17 and 33% between universities (Figure 1). The distribution of participants by academic semester across universities is shown in Figure 2. Overall, it can be seen that the distribution is reasonably balanced, although first semester students from Munich are slightly overrepresented.

In terms of gender distribution, there was a ratio of 92.1% female (n = 1,405) to 7.2% male (n = 110) veterinary medicine students, as well as 0.7% (n = 10) who could not or did not want to assign themselves to a gender. The respondents were on average 24.5 years old.

Of the 1,525 participants, not all students stated their parents’ highest education degree, but 1,498 students could be divided into the two groups. Of the respondents, 60.1% (n = 901) stated that at least one parent had a university degree; these were classified as CGS. Correspondingly, 39.9% (n = 597) of participants were classified as FGS.

On average, FGS were older than CGS (mean: CGS: 24.0; FGS 25.1; MWU p < 0.001). With regard to the semester and also the year of entering veterinary school, there was no difference between FGS and CGS (CS: p = 0.628 and p = 0.475 respectively), so that the age difference is not due to a higher semester, but to a higher age when entering veterinary studies.

Continuing-generation students are almost twice as likely to be admitted to veterinary medicine via the best final high school grade (FHSG) quota (CGS 22.3%, n = 201; FGS 12.7%, n = 76). On the other hand, FGS are slightly more likely to be admitted to veterinary medicine via the university selection process and the additional aptitude quota, as shown in Table 1. In Germany, the FHSG is scaled from 0.7–4.0 with lower scores indicating a better result. If we look at the FHSG in separate categories of FGS (n = 571) and CGS (n = 881), the median FHSG for FGS was 1.90, whereas the median for CGS was 1.70 (MWU: p < 0.001), whereby not every person of the veterinary students has obtained an Abitur or has stated the grade.

When comparing the educational biographies of veterinary students separately for FGS and CGS, 846 CGS (93.9%) and 511 FGS (85.6%) stated that they had not obtained a lower (such as secondary) school leaving certificate before obtaining their high school certificate. Of the CGS, 273 (30.3%) had completed at least one vocational training. In contrast, 278 FGS (46.6%) had completed at least one vocational training (Figure 3).

Overall, 34.2% of the students were dual-qualified (n = 521), i.e., they had both a vocational and a school-leaving qualification. If this is broken down between the cohorts, there is a clear trend towards CGS having fewer dual qualifications than FGS (CGS: 28.4%, n = 256; FGS: 42.9%, n = 256; CS: p < 0.001).

Looking at the subjective assessment of their financial situation, FGS perceived their situation significantly worse than CGS (CS: p < 0.001; Table 2). The subjective perception of the financial situation depending on employment is shown in Figure 4. Interestingly, people who rated their financial situation as “5—very bad” were significantly more likely to work 40 or more hours per month. This was observed in both cohorts.

Of the students surveyed, 31.6% (n = 473 of 1,498) stated that they were not employed. These were 298 CGS (33.1% of a total of 901) and 175 FGS (29.3% of 597). Of the remaining respondents, 46.9% (n = 703 of 1,498) were regularly employed—i.e. also during the running semester—whereby this affected slightly fewer CGS (n = 408; 45.3%) than FGS (n = 295; 49.4%). Only 5.9% (n = 89 of 1,498) were only employed during the lecture-free period and 15.6% (n = 233 of 1,498) were employed occasionally or when needed. This distribution did not differ significantly between FGS and CGS (FET: p = 0.073).

Among the employed students (964 participants), both FGS (72.3%, n = 287) and CGS (73.4%, n = 416) were predominantly employed in the context of a mini-job (marginal employment, up to 43 h per month depending on wage). In the category of students working 40–80 h per month, FGS were almost identically represented at 23.2% (n = 92) as CGS at 22.9% (n = 130). Significantly fewer students, 4.5% (n = 18) of FGS and 3.7% (n = 21) of CGS, worked 80 or more hours per month. This difference was not statistically significant (CS: p = 0.802).

Students who stated that they were employed had the opportunity to provide reasons for their employment (Figure 5). Of those, 26.5% of FGS (n = 112) and 14.4% of CGS (n = 87) stated that their employment was their sole source of income (CS: p < 0.001). When assessing the other answer options, CGS were significantly more likely to state that they were employed due to practical experience or to be able to afford something special, while FGS were significantly more likely to state that they were employed because other sources were insufficient.

When comparing participants’ responses to more differentiated aspects of the financial and organizational situation, FGS indicated a higher level of concern about the four financial aspects than CGS (Figure 6). The question about the costs of health insurance was only answered by those students who bore these costs themselves. This affected 39.5% (n = 354) of the CGS and 39.1% (n = 230) of the FGS. Thus, there was no difference between CGS and FGS who had to pay their contribution themselves, only the perceived burden from the subsequent filter question was more pronounced for FGS (p-value = 0.014). In contrast, there were no differences between FGS and CGS in the statement about organization (“time to learn”; CS: p = 0.349).

Students who had to work alongside their studies, have to look after children or have other commitments could experience organizational problems due to late course assignments, changes to plans or last-minute appointments (Table 3). There were no differences between CGS and FGS concerning this aspect (CS: p = 0.147). Those people who “sometimes/ often/ always” had problems with planning often stated that the rescheduling of employment was particularly stressful (56.5%), while caring for children (3.9%) and other relatives in need for care (9.5%) was less often mentioned as a challenge.

When comparing the proportion of FGS/CGS to other countries or studies, two factors have to be considered: First, the proportion of FGS is not only dependent on the accessibility of universities for FGS but also on the proportion of parents with a college degree (25). Moreover, different definitions of first-generation students exist. We used the most common definition, defining a first-generation student as an individual whose parents did not receive a college degree (4, 14). Some other studies assess the educational background for mother and father separately (26, 27) or build more than two categories (25).

In Germany, around 72% of pupils have parents without a college degree, but only 47% of all students attending a university are FGS (28). Another study reports a proportion of 38% FGS in Germany (25). The proportion of FGS in law, medicine and pharmacology studies is significantly lower at around 32% (4). The proportion of FGS in veterinary medicine, assessed in this study (40%), can therefore been interpreted as relatively high for Germany compared to other studies with a similar degree (4).

With regard to veterinary medicine, there is a study from Australia (27) in which students at the University of Sydney and Charles Sturt University (CSU; Wagga Wagga, Australia) were compared in terms of the educational background of their parents. This study analyzed the education of mothers and fathers separately, so the data is not directly comparable. At the University of Sydney, 63% of fathers and 54% of mothers had a higher education degree, while only 38% of students at CSU had a father with such a degree, and only 24% of their mothers had a degree. The parents of students at CSU were significantly more likely to be farmers (27).

Regardless of their parents’ educational background, almost all respondents (97%) had a high school-based entrance qualification (Abitur). This is higher than the average of German students [85%; (4)]. In this study, less than 10% of respondents had first obtained a lower school-leaving qualification. This could rise to the assumption that catching up on school-leaving qualifications is not possible without complications. In order to counteract the shortage of skilled workers and help more people gain access to higher education, more information is needed on the one hand and barriers need to be removed on the other. For example, it is not always possible for adults at night schools to obtain a high school degree.

In this study, more FGSs than CGSs had completed vocational training before starting their studies. This result is consistent with other studies. Compared to children from an academically oriented home, FGS more frequently secure their educational pathway with previous vocational training (4, 22). Overall, the proportion of veterinary students who have completed vocational training is relatively high at 36%. Across Germany, 26% of students had completed vocational training before enrolling at a university for the first time (4). This means that the proportion of students who already have professional experience and therefore practical skills and knowledge is pleasingly high. At the same time, these students may have to get back into learning and need more support with learning strategies and self-organization.

Looking at school-leaving qualifications and vocational training, this study shows that more than a third of respondents have both a school-leaving qualification and another higher education entrance qualification, i.e., are dual-qualified according to the definition of the Social Survey (22). These people therefore have special knowledge and skills. It is desirable that these qualifications are given special consideration in the allocation of study places, also in order to increase diversity in veterinary medicine.

It is not only the path to studying that is paved with smaller and larger hurdles, but there are also challenges for students during their studies themselves. In this study, FGS rated their financial situation worse than CGS did with regard to various aspects. This was based on self-assessments, so it is quite possible that there are fewer differences in terms of the actual financial situation. However, generally speaking, FGS come from lower-income families (8, 10, 29). Therefore, it could also be that FGS cannot rely on the support of their parents in case of need. Another explanation is that FGS have inherently manifested financial worries mentally and are therefore more concerned about their financial situation. In general, however, the respondents tended to rate their financial situation as good—this was not the case in a survey of Australian veterinary students (30).

This study showed that around two thirds of respondents were employed alongside their studies, with no clear difference between FGS and CGS. This is roughly in line with the German average: in 2021, 64% of university students had a (part-time) job (4). This finding is surprising, as veterinary students have an above-average workload with regard to their studies and gives an insight into the demands veterinary students faced. In this study, 27% of FGS (and a lower proportion of CGS) had to finance themselves entirely through their employment, which is a considerable burden and can also have a negative impact on academic performance or mental health. Financial worries are a major cause of stress among veterinary students (31). Internationally, this proportion is difficult to compare with other studies due to differences in study-related working hours, living costs and tuition fees. In the previously cited study from Australia, 55% of veterinary students stated that they had to work alongside their studies in order to meet basic living expenses (30).

For 22% of students, short-term changes to the study schedule always or frequently lead to organizational problems. This was sometimes the case for a further 43% of respondents. Particularly in view of the high stress levels of veterinary students (32), early planning is a relief for students. One recommendation to support FGS in particular is to sensitize teachers and lecturers to the topic (14). The more that is known about the hurdles of FGS, the more likely it is that lecturers will be able to address them, e.g., by making appointments for courses and other meetings in good time and thus provide support.

In our study, 11% of students had frequent or almost constant thoughts of dropping out, which is slightly more than the average German student (4). There were no differences between FGS and CGS (Table 4). A review showed that CGS usually perform better and FGS are more likely to drop out of university (29). However, this could be distorted by other factors: In a comparison of FGS and CGS from low-income families, there was no difference in terms of academic performance (33). In this study, there were differences between FGS and CGS with regard to the reasons for dropping out: in the case of FGS, both financial reasons and the demands of studying played a role more frequently. This can be explained by the poorer assessment of their own financial situation, the feeling of “being different” (15) as well as imposter feelings of FGS (4, 9).

The percentage of students with thoughts about dropping out of studies changed only moderately over the different semesters. Interestingly, those students with thoughts of dropping out of university considered most frequently to change the profession in the first and last year of studies. Students having just completed their PY had gained insights into different fields of the veterinary profession. In Germany, students can select to some extent where they do their external practical training (EPT) during the PY, and often choose those domains (species) they are most interested in. However, some internships, like working in food safety, meat inspection or in veterinary authorities, are mandatory (34). We expected that after this phase of practical work and insights into the variety of the profession, students would have found the field where they like to work after their studies. Instead, the number of students thinking about leaving the profession increased despite the exposure to diverse fields. One reason therefore might be that students realized that their a-priori expectation differed from what they experienced during their EPT. In addition to increasing the awareness of EPT providers to communicate a realistic but positive view of the profession, it might be helpful to introduce mandatory internships before admission to veterinary school in order to better prepare students for the challenges of the profession.

This study showed that FGS were somewhat more uncertain about planning a doctorate (Table 5). This can also be explained by the reasons mentioned above, but possibly also by the older age of FGS. Not to be neglected here is the availability of knowledge about framework conditions and guidelines for doctoral studies as well as social capital (14) and financial considerations. In principle, however, significantly fewer FGS than CGS obtain a doctorate in Germany (7).

Although the topic of FGS and the hurdles they face (8–14) have been brought into focus in recent years, even today not everyone is aware of this topic. This is illustrated by the fact that this study is one of the first studies ever dealing with FGS in veterinary medicine. It is important to create an awareness of social background at universities in order to counteract challenges for FGS and to support them when family structures or friends can no longer help. For this reason, the first step is to create more awareness and understanding of this topic among lecturers, but also among the students themselves. One way to support FGS is to establish mentoring programs, as in the USA (35, 36). In Germany, there are already mentoring programs (11) for FGS, but not directly in veterinary medicine. Further help could be provided by courses and financial counselling, as well as more forward planning for appointments and courses. It should be borne in mind that FGS also experience disadvantages after they finished their studies: FGS earn less even with the same educational qualifications [class-pay-gap; (37)]. The extent to which this also applies to veterinarians is unclear and should be investigated in further studies. It could be useful to support FGS both before their studies and at the beginning of their career. Although it has been found that FGS are more likely to have completed a vocational training prior to studying, there is a lack of research into the extent to which this additional qualification impacts on the labor market and improves diversity through prior practical experience. However, this also requires a better overview, for example by recording educational background during enrolment. This study has closed a major milestone in the knowledge gap. In summary, it can be said that more attention needs to be paid to this topic in order to bring about further improvements, particularly for the future of the veterinary labor market.