Education as a collective accomplishment: how personal, peer, and parent expectations interact to promote degree attainment

Abstract

University enrollment rates have increased substantially both in the U.S. and internationally over the past 40 years. Unfortunately, university completion rates have not kept pace, causing scholars to project that international labor markets may face a deficit in qualified (i.e., bachelors-degree or equivalent) workers. In the U.S., this could begin as early as 2018. With this deficit looming, efforts to understand the factors that contribute to degree attainment have redoubled. This article is a piece of that effort. By analyzing data from 3279 individuals who participated in the Longitudinal Study of American Youth, this study examines the relative importance of personal, peer, and parent educational expectations in the degree attainment of students 15 years after high school graduation. Results suggest that all three of these factors are indeed predictive of educational outcomes, even when controlling for student background characteristics and high school achievement levels. However the relative importance of these variables varies across demographic groups. Implications of results will be discussed in terms of educational policy and practice.