Southeast Asian (SEA) American students are a growing population that tends to be overlooked by researchers due to assumptions that they are high achieving and overrepresented in higher education. Data aggregation often lumps Asian Americans into a monolithic category, obscuring differences between East Asians and SEA. I use the framework of the racial triangulation theory (Kim, 1999) and the model minority (MM) and perpetual foreigner (PF) stereotypes. While stereotypes widely impact Asian Americans, I argue that the lack of research on SEAA makes them particularly vulnerable. The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which SEAA’s experience of racial stereotypes mediate their level of education attainment. The 2016 National Asian American (NAAS) survey is used to examine the effects of racial stereotypes on college degree attainment. The dataset includes 3,276 adult respondents who identify with East Asian and SEA roots, allowing disaggregation for purposes of inter-group ethnic comparisons. Results show that SEA are 23 percentage points less likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree than East Asians, challenging assumptions of monolithic success for Asian Americans. This gap is partially explained by experiences of the MM stereotype which are associated with a 0.14 probability increase of college degree attainment for East Asians. Furthermore, findings ironically show that SEA students with a college degree experience higher cases of the PF stereotype, which is explained by the “institutional invisibility” faced by this group. Findings have implications for academic policies and how resources should be deployed to meet the needs of this student group.