When Martine Amisial started thinking about college for her three children—Dominique, 17, Matthew, 16, and Jeffrey, 13—she wanted their experience to differ from her own. The daughter of immigrants from Haiti, Amisial was a first-generation college student when she took out loans to enroll in Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey, a school her parents chose, to study biology and chemistry.