College parent expectations for 2024
Our annual Family Engagement Report is now available, full of insights on what the parents and family members of today’s college students want, need, and expect. You should download it.
For the 2024 report we surveyed 20,487 family members across 46 institutions using CampusESP. Below I break down some of the top takeaways we found.
Or you can watch me walk through it with Raquel Bermejo, Ed.D, Associate Vice President for Marketing Research & Planning for Enrollment Management at Ruffalo Noel Levitz and Jennifer Plumlee, Ed.D, Vice President for Access and Student Success at Marian University — we chatted recently to sift through the data and bring you up to speed.
Watch the recording below or read the highlights here.
Most families (still) want to hear from you weekly
Our research consistently shows that families want to hear from you at least weekly — consistently, more than 70% of them. But what surprises folks is how deep the connection between the student and family are.
It shouldn’t. Nearly 50% of families communicate with their students every day. “Looking at the data, we can make the connection between these frequent communications as the families are supporting their students which is directly interrelated with student success,” said Bermejo.
Plumlee shared how she sees the evidence every day at Marian. “We’re seeing an increase in first generation college students, Pell eligible students, and definitely with our Latino students. We know that constant contact creates new opportunities for us as institutions to determine how we are going to interact with families and adapt or evolve our current communication. For example, we're now translating parts of our newsletter into Spanish so it's accessible to all.”
Email remains the preferred channel. Text messaging is an emerging communication gap
Email might be king, but text is the second most-requested channel for receiving communication from a student’s college or university.
Makes sense, but there’s a major disconnect: look at the gap between families that would like text messaging (42%) compared to the institutions that use it (18%).
The preference is even higher for underrepresented populations. Raquel has some insight into why: “It's about meeting the families where they are. And when we're talking about lower income families and first generation families, these adults are most likely not sitting in front of the computer all day like the three of us. We can’t expect them to keep up with email.”
(Can anyone keep up with email anymore?)
Families want more information about student support services
Parents are savvy — and most will dig to find the information they want. But many are still coming up empty.
In the survey, families expressed disappointment in both their ability to find and the quality of some of the content available to them, especially when it came to support services like mental health and financial aid information.
It gets worse when you see this gap: first generation families reported being 20% less likely to know where to find that information.
Understandably, Bermajo shared her frustration here. “This is truly where I see the lack of equity in the access to information. Information for the parents equals support they can give their students to succeed and to stay in school.
“Do they have to click seven times to get to a place where it explains how to? One layer is how easy it is to find information. And the other layer is: Are we ( institutions) talking to normal people? Are we expecting them to speak this higher ed lingo that only we speak? Are we explaining things in a way that they can actually understand them, and are we offering to help them understand this information?”
Families see the ROI of college, but they need more help navigating financial aid
Let’s start with the good news — this year both the percent of families who were satisified with the level of financial aid they received and the percent who were happy with the value of tuition as an invest went up!
But that doesn’t mean families still don’t find financial aid frustrating. 32% of families said that the financial aid information they received was complete, useful, and easy to comprehend. That’s two thirds of families who need more support when it comes to financial aid.
“Families want actionable items. Tell them what they need to knock off that checklist in order to help make their students successful,” Plumlee said.
Of note: this survey took place in October and November of 2023 … before FAFSA changes. One can assume families became even more confused over the course of the academic year.
The goal of family engagement is to ensure parents know how to advise their student. The goal of this annual report is to help you understand the best way to facilitate that.
Plumlee summed it up best: “Let's realize that family members consume content in multiple different ways. When we need them to take action, we need to make sure that we're meeting them exactly where they are.”