This paper explores the foundations of Samoan attitudes to education, the ways these influenced decisions to migrate to New Zealand, and whether or not those decisions have been justified by the subsequent educational and labor market experiences of their New Zealand-born descendants. The first part establishes how, when, and why Samoans came to value formal education and to believe that it could transform life chances and career prospects. It shows why these convictions about education led people to believe that migration to New Zealand would ensure their children had access to a system of formal education that would improve their life chances. The second part of the paper examines whether early migrant parents' suppositions were correct. This is done by comparing the formal educational attainments, patterns of labor market participation, and income distributions of a cohort of New Zealand-and island-born Samoans aged between 40 and 49 years and resident in New Zealand in 1996. Data from the 1996 Census of Population and Dwellings were used, courtesy of Statistics New Zealand. The comparison of the situations of the age 40-49 cohort was intended to capture the situations of the children of those early migrants, who were born in New Zealand between 1947 and 1956, and to compare their situations with those of Samoan-born residents at similar stages in their careers and life cycles. Individuals in this age group would have entered similar labor markets (at different times) and would be expected to be approaching the highest points in their career paths, whereas comparable 57