Abstract
This article explores high parental involvement in students’ lives during and after higher education. While many higher education students lack parental support, from advice to resources, there are also experiences on the other side of the spectrum. Students and graduates may feel fated to certain trajectories whether through parental authoritarianism or more subtle compliance and inter-generational reciprocity. This article draws from 18 months of ethnographic research with 30 students and graduates from a high-profile university in New York City. The methodological focus entailed repeat interviews with individuals, talking about their lives, aspirations, studies, and their relationships with people and places. The article discusses intra-familial negotiation over subject and career choices and by association, over agency and the future of young adults. Cultural, classed, and psychological interpretations all indicate the uncertain boundaries between human beings as young people contest and absorb the influence of their parents.
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