Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu`s researches, the study focuses on the relationship university students build with academic knowledge and the University, in the context of changes and challenges Brazilian urban middle classes face to their social reproduction by the end of the 90`s. A case study has been developed at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro with students of Electrical Engineering and Law, who graduated at year 2000, based on a variety of data sources ranging from questionnaires to academic and administrative information available in the University. A typology for the different school trajectories of the group, from the elementary school to the University, has been built for the analysis. This has made possible a dialogue with the literature in sociology of education about the intergenerational transmission of the cultural inheritance within the middle classes, enabling to discuss and deepen some of the existing interpretations about the family strategies of social status reproduction, particularly referring to educational investments. Among other relevant features, the study has shown - within the limits of the available data - the influence of the volume and the structure of the cultural capital of the families in the building of the educational family strategies and the habitus of the youngsters researched. Even though it has not been possible to identify very different patterns of choice, among the middle class fractions studied, a tendency to develop a pragmatic and instrumental relationship towards the school has been established. Finally, the research has assembled various elements about what could be called a university student habitus forged through the college graduation, in the constitution of which interact the dispositions produced both in their native world and in the relationships experimented during their university socialization process, particularly those related with the socioprofissional space of the chosen graduation course.