> I find this very interesting in light of studies I've seen in Canada and Europe: Those studies all found that parental income was irrelevant after regressing for the overwhelming effect of parental education.

All past US studies I've seen have shown the same thing, or at least that parental educational attainment is a better predictor of a persons educational attainment than any other factor, including parental income.

> Of course, this would reinforce the story being told even more: Parents with college degrees encourage and expect their progeny to attend and graduate from college, while parents without that higher education do not provide an analogous proof of possibility.

Or: a lot of the education necessary to success in formal education happens outside of its bounds in less-formal interactions, including, especially, those in the home.

It is also about opinions on college utility. Do parents think college is a waste of time? If parents think it is waste of time, you are more likely to think the same and drop out.

I think that's part of it, but I think its also about the ability to actually have an informed discussion about what college is and isn't, about what you need to do to be ready for college, and about dealing with problems that arise while in college.

Parents having actual directly relevant experience seems intuitively to be quite likely to have value there.

My personal interpretation is that a lot of this effect is driven by the fact that income (which I think we tend to think about as a proxy for standard of living, including quality of school system and safety of neighborhood, and not just what their family can buy) is often difficult to measure, and parental education might actually offer a much better measure of "standard of living" children experience (which is why it may show up as significant, while income may not, in those analyses).

Wealth is a poor indicator of education. Usually the questions will be how much do the parents earn, rather than where they live or their standard of living. My Dad has a doctorate in physics from a top university, yet he's pretty much given up normal employment and lives a happy sustainable life. Measured by annual income alone, he's probably below the poverty line.

On an individual scale, wealth is a poor indicator of education, but in the aggregate the correlation is very strong: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

Doctoral degree-holders are unique in that they're the only group that earns less than a lesser-educated group (professional degrees).

A professional degree isn't exactly "less" than a doctorate, though. Traditionally speaking, Medicine and Law are doctorates... and they both rank ahead of the Doctor of Philosophy (but behind a Doctor of Divinity, which is the highest doctorate).

> Traditionally speaking, Medicine and Law are doctorates... and they both rank ahead of the Doctor of Philosophy

No, while medical doctors and lawyers (civil doctors), were recognized uses of the term "doctor" for quite some time, traditionally the professional degrees in both fields have been baccalaureate degrees (the MBBS in medicine/surgery and the LL.B. in law), outside of certain Scottish universities, and the change to make the degrees generally doctorates were fairly recent (19th Century) US innovations.

The most depressing thing for a parent to realise is that a lot of the factors that will determine whether or not their child is successful at attaining higher education are locked in place before the child is ever conceived.

That is - quite apart from genetic differences - your own education level, motivation, attitudes and various other influences are set by the time you become a parent. It's difficult and unlikely that you will change, and your child will begin to be influenced by their environment the moment they arrive. Probably your biggest choice of determinant is your partner, but even that is influenced by all the things already in place.

The only usable piece of information from these types of studies is that, if you didn't graduate, you're going to have to work very hard to assist your own children to graduate.

The hopeful message is that some people are working hard to change this situation, so that able yet disadvantaged students can break the cycle and get a higher education.

They both could be the same variable. If "Wealth doesn't matter once you factor in parental education" and "Parental education doesn't matter once you factor in wealth" are both true, then it's probably the same effect.