Earlier this week Inside Higher Education ran a fascinating story on the impact of parents on low-income high school students’ chances of enrolling in college.

The story begins…

Many studies have found that low-income high school students and those whose parents are not well educated are less likely to enroll in college. And disproportionate numbers of black and Latino youth fall into this group.

One solution to this problem is to increase the availability of aid — as the Obama administration and Congress appear to agree with their plans to increase the maximum Pell Grant significantly. But research presented [in San Francisco] Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association suggested that without shifting the attitudes of parents of low-income students — well before it’s time to enroll for college — any increases may not have the full impact desired.

New work presented by University of Washington sociologist Deborah M. Warnock, entitled  “Inequalities at the Outset,” uses ” a combination of federal and state databases in which parents are interviewed about college for their eighth graders.” According to Inside Higher Ed, Warnock “finds negative attitudes that not only are likely to discourage these youth from enrolling, but that suggest widespread ignorance of the present availability of aid — even before any Pell Grant growth — for those below the poverty line. And she found that low-income white parents may be particularly unaware of aid.”

Additional findings:

• Hispanic and Asian parents of eighth graders are less likely than white parents to think about how to finance a higher education, and black parents are more likely than white parents to think about paying for college.
• Parents with low incomes and less education are less likely than others to have thought about how to pay for college.
• While a majority of parents of all demographic groups who are below poverty level report that they believe they have “no way” of getting funds for college for their children, white parents in poverty are more likely to have this feeling than are minority parents.
• Among middle and upper income families, across the board, only a minority feel there is “no way” to pay for colleges. In this economic group, whites are less likely than minority parents to feel that way.

Read more.