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Much research has focused on the relative success of Asian Americans in U.S. higher education, particularly their high rates of enrollment and graduation compared to White Americans. In this research, we investigate one factor that may influence these outcomes: whether Asian American families invest more financially in their children’s college education. Using data from the 2015–2016 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, we find that Asian American families contribute more not only absolutely but also proportionate to their incomes. This is not due to their greater financial resources but is related to Asian American students’ attendance at more selective institutions. Asian American families may adopt college investment strategies that place more value on selective institutions, perhaps because of perceived intrinsic value, high esteem in their social networks, limited information about other institutions, and/or because they anticipate that such experiences more easily translate into desired occupations.

A research is done among some families with school-aged children living in Philadelphia Metropolitan area to discuss about social inequality in school choices. Data suggested that the expanded school choice policies of urban districts would have little influence on overall school inequality due to the tendency of European American middle-class families of choosing schools based on their neighborhoods and residences.

Racial segregation in schools and neighborhoods in the United States is stark and persistent. The results of this research provide clues as to why it may be so enduring. We find that as predominantly white schools in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area experience increases in black representation of up to seven percentage points during a four- to five-year period, white neighborhood residents are more likely to perceive that the quality of their schools has declined, despite the current conditions of the schools and in spite of changes in school characteristics. Our results are more consistent with racial threat theory than contact theory because they suggest that white residents may initially be threatened by racial change and judge declining school quality according to the racial change itself. As a consequence, white families may flee these integrating schools and neighborhoods, further contributing to school and neighborhood segregation.