Educational Attainment among Immigrants: Eight Years after High School

Chunyan Song, Arizona State University

As more and more full-time employees go back to school or attend school part-time, it is necessary to examine educational achievement several years after high school graduation. We use data from the National Education Longitudinal Study (88) to examine the educational trajectories of Asian and Hispanic immigrants eight years after high school. Our main research questions are 1): To what extent does time in the U.S., family backgrounds, and high school characteristics explain any of the difference in educational attainment eight years after high school graduation between immigrant groups and native-born whites? 2) Do these characteristics have differential explanatory power across different ethnic groups and generation status? We also distinguish our study by including a variable measuring direct acculturation level: improvement of spoken-English over time.