All of this falls into one's peer's group.
One of the reasons we moved into the area in which we live is because the children from kindergarten to their senior year just assume they are headed for college. Therefore, they would fallen in step with their peer group. They did and they have.
When I visit farming communities, where the life surrounds the farm, it no longer frowns on higher education, however, not long ago, it was different. The peer group wanted their eldest son to take over the farm and take care of their parents until they died. The younger children were to remain in this community as minister or priest, doctors, lawyers, teachers.... Life circled around families. Someone who broke away became an "outsider" and never felt comfortable in visiting very long with their family.
Saw it with musical families who were successful.
Families who's parents were teachers had son and daughters who's education were higher than their parents.
The Romanovs had their own peer group which was connected to the other royals of Europe. Because most spoke more than one language, they even had their own language just among cousins which held a mix of Russian, English, German French and probably Dannish since Dagmar was a Dane.
The Chinese peer groups were just as dominate under Imperial China as it is today. Communism has worked itself around and has absorbed the Chinese who never knew individual freedoms and has been of one mind for thousands of years.
Russia has been different due to it's many ethnic groups. It never has been of one mind. Nicholas II was a man in charge of a country full of people he didn't know or understand how restless and ripe for rebelling they were. He inherited this problem.
The USA is a huge melting pot that came very late in the history of civilizations. We had the good luck of having our founders understanding what was needed for different people to live peacefully side by side. We were given individual rights and freedoms. True, we've have many imperfections, but we keep trying to improve with age.
If Nicholas II could have done something to preserve the imperial throne, he would have had to have started the moment his father died.
Knowing the history of Russia, I'm not ever sure what he should have accomplished first.
AGRBear