Parental Involvement and College Enrollment: Differences Between Parents with Some and No College Experience

Parental involvement in a child’s education is one of the central mechanisms that prepares the child for postsecondary education. Since parental involvement demands considerable resources and experience, it remains unclear whether parents who have some college experience but no postsecondary degree are effective in supporting their child’s college pathway. In the current study, we use propensity score weighted path analysis to examine the relationship between the educational involvement of parents who do not have postsecondary credentials and the college enrollment of their high school-aged child. By analyzing a nationally representative panel dataset, we found that parents’ college experience is indirectly related to their child’s college enrollment. College socialization parental involvement when a child is in the 11th grade plays a pivotal role in mediating the effect of school- and home-based parental involvement in the ninth grade on the child’s college enrollment. The findings highlight the importance of parental involvement for a high school-aged child’s postsecondary enrollment even when the parents do not have postsecondary credentials and suggest viable ways to empower parents to effectively support their child’s postsecondary enrollment.