A stepping stone arises in risky environments with learning and transferable human capital. An example is the role played by academic two-year colleges in postsecondary education: Students, as they learn about the uncertain educational outcomes, can drop out or transfer up to harder and more rewarding schools, carrying a fraction of the accumulated human capital. A theory of education is built and contrasted empirically to find that i) option value explains a large part of returns to enrollment, ii) enrollment in academic two-year colleges is driven by the option to transfer up, and iii) the value of the stepping stone is small. JEL classification: D83, I21, J24.

In this paper, we exploit a rich longitudinal data set to explore the forces that, during high school, shape the development of aspirations to attend univer-sity and achieve academic success. We then investigate how these aspirations, along with grades and other variables, impact educational outcomes such as going to university and graduating. It turns out that parental expectations and peer factors have direct and indirect effects on educational outcomes through their impact on both grades and aspirations. Policy measures that enlighten parents about the value of education may positively modify educa-tional outcomes. Résumé Cet article profite d’une riche base de données longitudinales qui permet d’explorer les influences qui, au cours des études secondaires, poussent les étudiants à aspirer à une formation universitaire et à atteindre ainsi une forme de réussite académique. Nous étudions ensuite comment ces aspirations, les notes obtenues, ainsi que d’autres variables, exercent une influence sur l’éducation, comme les études universitaires et l’obtention d’un diplôme.

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All parents want what’s best for their children, but the support they provide varies significantly depending on the level of their expectations. If expectations are high, parents may encourage their child to take higher-level courses, provide help for homework and tests, assist in researching colleges and universities, or make sure that the school coursework is in line with the admissions criteria for postsecondary education. This kind of support often plays a key role in getting the children future-ready and determining successful career decisions. Research has shown that there is a clear relationship between what parents expect and the achievement scores of students. Thus, parental expectations for educational attainment strongly predict students ’ scores across a variety of subjects (e.g., mathematics, language), and this relationship remains stable even after controlling for socioeconomic status (Fan, 2001; Neuenschwander et al., 2007). Moreover, the effects of early parental expectations (formed as early as Grade 1) tend to persist throughout the years of schooling, influencing children’s performance and self-concept at later grades (Entwisle et al., 2005). Interestingly, research shows that this relationship is bidirectional, which means that the better children do in school, the higher the expectations, and the higher the expectations, the better children do (Englund et al., 2004). Parental and student expectations mutually influence each other, but this influence may also be moderated by gender. For instance, a recent multiple-group analysis revealed that the effects of parental expectations on student expectations