THE EFFECTS OF PARENTS’ COLLEGE SAVINGS ON COLLEGE ATTENDANCE AMONG STUDENTS FROM FAMILIES WITH LOW-INCOMES: \ud THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PARENT’S DISCUSSIONS ABOUT COLLEGE WITH THEIR CHILDREN\ud

College savings are a promising strategy to pay for higher education, given the high college costs and inadequate financial aid available to students today. Asset theory suggests college savings have financial as well as psychological and social effects on children’s educational outcomes. This dissertation study focuses on the role of parent-child discussions about college as a potential mediator in the relationship between savings and college attendance. Also, the direct association between these discussions about attending college and children’s college expectations was examined. The Wisconsin Model of status attainment provides the organizing framework for this study as it encompasses the most important factors at key moments in an individual’s trajectory to educational attainment. \ud The Education Longitudinal Study (2002) was utilized with the sample restricted to families with incomes at or below 185 percent of federal poverty guidelines. The total number of sample students is 3,997. Depending on the pattern of missing data, the deductive and multiple imputation approaches were applied. Since the outcome variable is polytomous, multinomial logistic regression analysis was used. To test mediation effects, both the Baron and Kenny approach and multiple mediation bootstrapping were employed. \ud Results of this study suggest college savings are significantly and positively associated with parental college expectations, parent-child discussions about college, and two-year college attendance. Both parental expectations and college discussions mediate the relationship between savings and college attendance. These findings suggest college savings programs could be a promising strategy to help students access a post-secondary education. Social workers in school settings need to encourage families to develop college savings accounts by providing relevant information and connecting these families to financial service institutions. \ud Another key finding is that discussions about attending college are associated with children’s own expectations and ultimate college attendance. Not all parents are comfortable talking with their children about going to college, especially without direct college experiences themselves. Developing programs to facilitate parent-child discussions about attending college is suggested so that social workers can help families to engage in productive discussions by providing communication guidelines and teaching parents’ ways to encourage their children without pressuring them. \ud \u