New research aims to untangle racial patterns in families' college spending. iStockPhoto // ADragan

whose parents are paying?

Media coverage of race and higher education in the United States often portrays Asian American and White families as competing for limited seats at prestigious institutions. What happens, though, when it’s time for those admitted students to go to school? New research aims to untangle patterns in these families’ college spending.

The study, published by Kimberly Goyette and colleagues in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, uses data from the 2015-2016 academic year drawn from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS). In their analysis, the authors find that Asian American parents paid more for their children’s college education compared to White parents, despite having lower average incomes. In part, this reflects the fact that Asian American college students were more likely to attend selective schools. But, by acknowledging the under-acknowledged diversity within the Asian American group and breaking the data down by immigrant generation, the scholars note important nuance. Parental spending was highest among three ethnic groups—Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Americans—and among recent immigrants. In fact, by the third generation in the United States, differences in Asian American and White parents’ college spending were no longer significant.