Jennifer Lee still remembers a conversation she had with her son, Justin, four years ago. She was enrolling him at Missouri Southern State University and was trying to impress upon him the importance of getting good grades when he threw out a comment that she took as a personal challenge. “He said, ‘How do you know, Mom? You never went to college,’” she said. “And I felt like I can’t push something with him that I’ve never done myself.”