Diversity, Situated Social Contexts, and College Enrollment: Multilevel Modeling to Examine Student, High School, and State Influences Dongbin Kim University of Kansas Anne-Marie Nuñez University of Texas at San Antonio Whether and where students begin college after high school profoundly affects their degree completion and ultimate educational attainment. Students’ college access is influenced not only by individual characteristics, but also by economic, social, and schooling contexts. Accordingly, using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study, 2002 (ELS:2002), we conducted three-level hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) to explore how student and family, high school, and state contextual charac- teristics are associated with high school graduates’ college enrollment in 2- or 4-year higher education institutions. We paid particular attention to the unique role of race/ethnicity in college enrollment, along with other demographic and academic, social, and cultural capital factors. Findings indicate significant challenges in college access for Latino students, and for students from low-income and first-generation backgrounds. Habitus and different forms of capital, and elements of high school’s college-going culture also appear to be critical in college enrollment. This study affirms that a high school student’s enrollment trajectories should be understood from a holistic perspective that considers how individual students’ college enrollment is affected by the high school they attended and the state where they lived. Implications for future research, policy, and practice, particularly those that relate to recruiting a racial/ethnic and socioeconomically diverse college-student population, are discussed. Keywords: race/ethnicity, college access, multilevel modeling, capitals, habitus Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0033231.supp High postsecondary attainment rates have propelled the U.S. advantage in the world econ- omy during the 20th century (Goldin & Katz, 2009; McMahon, 2009). Yet, other countries that have made stronger investments in higher education have now surpassed the rate of post- secondary educational attainment in the U.S. (College Board, 2008; Goldin & Katz, 2009). These conditions have motivated President Obama’s administration to set a goal for the U.S. to restore its position as having the highest postsecondary attainment levels by 2020 (Kelly, Schneider, & Carey, 2010). Meanwhile, demo- graphic projections indicate that students of color, particularly Latino students, will com- pose the majority of growth in the college-age population within the next decade (e.g., West- ern Interstate Commission on Higher Educa- tion, 2008). Yet, the racial/ethnic diversity in U.S. higher educational institutions has not kept up with these demographic trends. Census data from 2010 indicate that among American adults over the age of 25 that year, half of Asians and three in 10 of Whites, compared with just 14% of Latinos and one in five (20%) African Ameri- cans were baccalaureate graduates (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). The college enrollment rates of historically underrepresented students, includ- Dongbin Kim, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, University of Kansas; Anne-Marie Nu- ñez, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, University of Texas at San Antonio. Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- dressed to Dongbin Kim, Department of Educational Lead- ership and Policy Studies, School of Education, University of Kansas, Joseph R. Pearson Hall, Room 414, 1122 West Campus Road, Lawrence, KS 66045-3101. E-mail: dbkim@ku.edu This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education © 2013 National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education 2013, Vol. 6, No. 2, 84 –101 1938-8926/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0033231 84