Parental Involvement in Planning for College and Students’ Likelihood of Dropping Out of Four-Year Colleges

Kailey White , University of Chicago

Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study (ELS), I examine the influence of parental involvement in college planning during high school on whether students drop out of four-year colleges, and for the ones who do, I examine how this is associated with the timing of drop out. Applying to and attending college can be quite complex, requiring planning to make sure students find a college that is a good fit, have adequate funding for the college education, and are academically and emotionally prepared for college. This makes it important to examine whether parental involvement in planning during the high school years has a lasting impact on whether students drop out as well as the timing of college drop out. My preliminary findings suggest that certain measures of parental involvement, like the amount of savings parents had accumulated were significantly associated with the year of drop out.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session 4. Marriage, Family, Households, & Unions