What families want: Takeaways from the largest survey of college parents ever
CampusESP partnered with Ruffalo Noel Levtiz earlier this year to better understand the current college parent. The result was the largest survey of college families ever to date -- a look at 36,000 families of enrolled students and the unique challenges and needs of being a college family in 2021. Questions included their feelings about the overall college experience, communications from their college to the family, college financing, and the switch to virtual events during COVID.
Some responses were expected. Others were eye-opening. All should be inspiration for parent and family teams in both student affairs and enrollment offices as they develop family communication strategies and rethink how, when, and what they share.
Here’s a few findings we hooked onto in particular.
Email is the best way to connect with families
Parents in the survey overwhelmingly agreed that email is the form of communication they prefer most -- 96% said it was their first choice. If your team can do one thing well and at scale, it should be email.
That said, more is better, right? If you can, consider diversifying your communication channels, and allow parents to opt in to those that meet their needs and lifestyles. The survey showed that when given the option of two preferred communication channels, text messages and dedicated parent portals also were big asks.
The takeaway: meet your families where they are. And more often than not, that’s in their inbox.
Don’t sugarcoat it -- lead with the cost of college and how you can help
College has always been an investment, but as costs rise and in the wake of the financial upset of the pandemic, the value of a higher education degree is on the minds of more families.
Six out of ten parents with students at private institutions and 54% at public institutions said financing their student’s education would be difficult or very difficult. In tandem, 82% of families said that financial aid and scholarships are important or very important to them.
Another interesting stat to take pause on -- the satisfaction in the value of their investment in higher education goes down as a family’s income level decreases.
Families need and want information about financial aid, grants, scholarships, payment plans, and more. This needs to be front and center as you are creating your parent communication strategy. Be constant and clear with the sharing of this information, helping families understand the costs, the delivered value, and how together you can manage the financials in support of their student’s success.
Families want you to reach out more. Like every week.
We’ve all experienced inbox overload, and so you may think you’re doing parents a favor when you cut back on how often you reach out with info. Don’t.
According to the survey findings, parents want and need those continual, timely reminders and notices. In fact, 76% of respondents said they want communication from their student’s institution every week or more. That’s up from 67% in 2020.
Why the jump? As we just talked about, college is a huge investment, and huge investments require research, information, and planning. Learning about a school and ensuring their student is taking advantage of every opportunity their tuition covers is as important as a day trader keeping their eyes on the market. Add in COVID, when many either lost jobs, took financial hits, or simply were worried about the road ahead, and it's no surprise families got even more eager for information.
Further proof: when we asked families what topics were the most important, those surrounding cost (tuition and fees, payment plans and account services, and financial aid) were three of the top five. COVID was down on the list at number 8.
So reach out. This week. And next. And whenever else you have information families need to know.
We’ve seen that student persistence increases with parent engagement by 15%. And now we can see that parents want to be engaged. Moral of the story: Increase your outreach to meet the need, and you’ll also meet your student success goals.
(Curious how CampusESP can help you keep up with the demand of weekly communications? With automated newsletters, announcements, and campaigns, our customers are sending about 60 emails a year to their families, with our most active schools sending more than 200!)