Study: Parents’ Education Key Factor in Student Achievement

When it comes to meeting “college readiness benchmarks” on the ACT, first-generation college students generally trail their peers who have more highly educated parents — a reality that makes it less likely for them to succeed in college, a new report released Wednesday shows.

The report adds to the volumes of research that has consistently shown that the level of parental education is one of two of the strongest determinants of academic success — the other being the highly correlated level of parental income — even as educators and policymakers seek to level the playing field by taking more college prep-centered approaches to education.

The report, titled “The Condition of College & Career Readiness 2014: First-Generation Students,” shows that over the past four years, the percentage of ACT-tested graduates who are first-generation students has almost doubled — from 10 to 18 percent.

For the graduating class of 2014, 57 percent — or more than 1.8 million students — took the ACT nationwide, and 341,000 of those test-takers were first-generation students.