Enrollment rates

Enrollment in postsecondary education represents the culmination of a process that typically begins years earlier. How students move through this process varies greatly (Hossler et al. 1999). Some students grow up expecting to go to college, take appropriate courses in high school, and concentrate on choosing a specific institution, often soon after they begin high school. Others plan to attend college as they progress through high school but then change their goals or even decide not to enroll. Others decide late in their high school careers that they want to go to college and then find their options limited because they have not taken appropriate courses or met other admission requirements.

• The likelihood of enrolling in postsecondary education is strongly related to parents’ education even when other factors are taken into account.

As parents’ education increases, so does students’ likelihood of enrolling in postsecondary education. Among 1992 high school graduates whose parents did not go to college, 59 percent had enrolled in some form of postsecondary education by 1994 (table 1). The enrollment rate increased to 75 percent among those whose parents had some college experience, and to 93 percent among those whose parents had at least a bachelor’s degree.

Parents’ education mattered even for graduates who as seniors had planned to enroll in a 4-year institution immediately after high school. Among these college-bound seniors, 65 percent of those whose parents did not attend college had enrolled in a 4-year institution by 1994, compared with 87 percent of those whose parents had bachelor’s degrees or higher. In addition, rather than pursuing their plans to attend a 4-year institution, graduates whose parents did not attend college were about twice as likely as their peers whose parents had attained bachelor’s or advanced degrees to attend public 2-year institutions instead (20 versus 9 percent).

Parents’ education is only one of many factors linked to postsecondary enrollment. In fact, multivariate analyses have shown that family income, educational expectations, academic preparation, parental involvement, and peer influence also independently affected graduates’ likelihood of enrolling in a 4-year institution by 1994 (Horn and Nuñez 2000). Nonetheless, parents’ education—specifically, having a parent with a bachelor’s degree—remained significant even after controlling for these other factors. Students whose parents had some college experience, but not a bachelor’s degree, did not appear to have an advantage over those whose parents had no postsecondary education.

Among 1992 high school graduates who had not enrolled in a 4-year institution by 1994, the likelihood of enrolling in any other postsecondary education increased with parents’ education—starting with 43 percent of those whose parents had no postsecondary education, increasing to 59 percent of those whose parents had some college experience, and to 74 percent of those whose parents had bachelor’s degrees or higher (Horn and Nuñez 2000). This relationship held after controlling for the factors mentioned above that were associated with 4-year enrollment, although family income and high school coursetaking did not independently affect the likelihood of enrolling in less-than-4-year institutions.

While the data indicate that postsecondary enrollment is linked to parents’ education, increasing access to postsecondary education for these students by changing their parents’ education is not feasible. Therefore, examining parents’ education in relation to students’ behaviors and academic experiences as they plan and prepare for college during high school may produce insights into how the influence of parents’ education might be reduced.