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Using the Educational Longitudinal Survey of 2002, we investigate variation in factors that contribute to Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White students' educational expectations. Separate multilevel models demonstrate group variation in student and school-level influences. Academic and school factors explained the most variation in White students' expectations. School characteristics were least predictive of Black student expectations. For Hispanic students, the overall influence of family socioeconomic status (SES) was explained by school level SES. These results support research on student-level predictors of expectations and present new evidence of school-level predictors. The impact of academic track perceptions on expectations is established, as are the effects of certain experiences and school contexts, especially sports participation and Catholic/private school attendance. A model comparing all four groups supported the separate group models and also revealed that student-level factors have a weaker influence on Asians and high crime neighborhoods inflate the expectations of Hispanics but not similarly situated Black students.

SES is negatively associated with alcohol misuse because low SES increases people's perceptions that their lives are determined by luck, and reduces their sense of personal control. However, low income has a countervailing negative influence on alcohol misuse via its association with religiosity.

Given the major investment in the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) grant, rising postsecondary access, trends in poor persistence and retention rates, and the ongoing accountability measures in higher education, it is critical to examine factors related to postsecondary performance and persistence of GEAR UP students in comparison to their peers. College performance and persistence of 298 State GEAR UP students were compared with other first-time, first-year students (1,841) who entered a moderately selective, medium-sized public research university in Fall 2012. The GEAR UP students were more likely to be from disadvantaged, underrepresented backgrounds; despite less advantageous beginnings, they entered college with similar high school grade point average and Scholastic Assessment Test scores, though lower American College Test scores. Also, students' first-term grade point average and credit loads served as predictors of persistence. Most importantly, GEAR UP students were just as likely to perform and persist as their peers.