Educational aspirations and expectations have often been found to be related to postsecondary attendance\16\. In the NELS:88 survey, students were asked in both the eighth grade (1988) and in their senior year (1992) about the level of education they expected to achieve. Their responses to the question "As things stand now, how far in school do you think you will get?" in 1988 and in 1992 are displayed in table 8. As early as the eighth grade, the expectation of finish-ing college was directly related to family income and parental levels of education\17\. Among eighth graders from low-income families 59 percent expected to finish college, compared with 76 percent from middle-income and 92 percent from high-income families. Hispanic eighth graders were less likely to expect to finish college than either whites or Asians.
When the students were asked this question again in 1992 during their senior year, there was a small increase in the proportion saying that they expected some postsecondary education (from 20 percent to 25 percent) and a small decrease in those who expected to finish college (from 73 percent to 71 percent). However, there were no measurable changes among low-income students, blacks, or Hispanics in the proportion expecting to finish college. Over the period of four years there had been no lowering of expectations on average among those groups of students whose families would have the greatest concerns and difficulties in financing a college education, although as high school seniors they were presumably much more aware of college costs and financial aid than they had been in the eighth grade.
In addition to the question about their educational expectations, the seniors were also asked a more concrete question: whether they planned to continue their education immediately after high school. Their plans are compared to their actual enrollment patterns in table 9. More than three-quarters (79 percent) indicated that they planned to enroll in postsecondary education immediately after high school. When those who said that they did not plan to continue immediately were asked if they ever intended to continue, virtually all (97 percent) of the high school graduates said that they planned to continue their education at some time after high school\18\. More than 94 percent of students from all racial-ethnic groups, all family income levels, and all parental education levels said that they planned to attend postsecondary education at some time.
Differences by family income and education levels emerge, however, when the seniors were asked if they intended to enroll immediately after high school (table 9). The proportion planning to attend postsecondary education immediately after high school was directly related to family income and parental education. For example, 70 percent of low-income students, compared with 82 percent of middle-income and 92 percent of high-income students, said that they planned to attend postsecondary education immediately after high school.
The proportion of high school graduates who actually enrolled in postsecondary education in the fall term (October 1992) was 65 percent\19\. By 1994, two years after graduating from high school, three-quarters (75 percent) of the 1992 high school graduates had enrolled in postsecondary education.
Enrollment in postsecondary education within two years of high school graduation was directly related to both the family income and the education levels of the students' parents. By 1994, 64 percent of low-income students, compared to 79 percent of middle-income and 93 percent of high-income students, had enrolled in postsecondary education. Those who said that they planned to attend immediately after high school, however, had high enrollment rates: 89 percent actually enrolled in postsecondary education within two years. Enrollment rates were also high (83 to 84 percent) for those low-income, black, and Hispanic students who had planned to attend postsecondary education immediately after high school, although the enrollment rates were even higher for the middle-income (90 percent), white and Asian (90 to 92 percent), and high-income (96 percent) students who had also planned to do so.
Table 10 focuses on those seniors who said that they planned to attend a four-year college or university immediately after high school\20\. Nearly all of these seniors attended some postsecondary institution (94 percent); over three-quarters (78 percent) enrolled in four-year institutions. Among those who planned to attend a four-year college, low- and middle-income students were less likely to actually enroll in a four-year institution than high-income students (72 and 77 percent compared to 89 percent, respectively). Black and Hispanic students were also less likely to enroll in four-year institutions than white and Asian students. About 15 percent of those who planned to attend a four-year college immediately after high school enrolled in a two-year public college instead. The public two-year college enrollment rate of those who planned to attend four-year institutions was similar for both low- and middle-income students and for all racial-ethnic groups (about 15 to 17 percent) except for Hispanics (22 percent), who were more likely to attend community colleges than whites\21\.
16/ M. Paulsen, College Choice: Understanding Student Enrollment Behavior (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 6, Washington, D.C.: 1990).
17/ Students who expected to attain at least a bachelor's degree were considered to have expected to "finish college." Those who expected to complete trade or vocational school or "some college" were considered to have expected to complete "some postsecondary." See appendix A for a description of the expectation variable
18/ Although the terms are similar, in this report "expectations" refers to one specific question in the NELS survey ("How far in school do you think you will get?") which was asked in 1988 and again in 1992, while "plans" refers to another question (asked only in 1992) about their plans immediately after high school.
19/ This is comparable to the October college-going rate (62 percent) reported in the Current Population Survey (CPS), because the CPS rate does not include enrollments in less-than-2-year institutions (about 3 percent of the NELS students). For the annual CPS college-going rates by income and race-ethnicity see U.S. Department of Education, , The Condition of Education 1996 (Washington, D.C.: 1996): 52-53.
20/ This constituted 71 percent of all 1992 high school graduates. National Education Longitudinal Study: 1988-94 (NELS:88), Data Analysis System.
21/ V. Lee and K. Frank found that 1980 Hispanic high school graduates were twice as likely to have enrolled in a community college than a four-year institution within two years after high school graduation. "Students' Characteristics That Facilitate the Transfer from Two-Year to Four-Year Colleges," Sociology of Education 63 (1990): 178-193.
