What Parents Want from Colleges Now

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0:00:10.2 Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Office Hours with EAB. Today, our experts unpack EAB’s latest survey of more than 2,500 parents to reveal what they want from colleges, how they define value, and why engaging them more effectively could give enrollment teams a powerful advantage in recruiting teenagers. So give these folks a listen and enjoy.

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0:00:37.0 Madeleine Rhyneer: Hello everyone and welcome to Office Hours with EAB. My name is Madeleine Rhyneer and I’m thrilled to be your host today. I’ve been on the podcast many times, usually talking about the latest research and insights admission teams and university marketers may use in their recruitment strategies. We know there’s nothing more important than finding, engaging, and persuading teens that your institution could be the right fit for them. But we know that this requires you to adapt constantly because the means and methods teens are using to find information about colleges are constantly changing. And let’s not forget the pivotal role that parents play in the college search process, the focus of this podcast today. Because we work with teens and their supporters, we know the value of research data to confirm our observations or to disabuse us of erroneous ideas we have about how teens and parents approach decisions about whether and where to go to college. My guest today knows a lot about this topic by virtue of her role as head of research for EAB’s Enrollment Services division. I’m thrilled to be joined by my colleague and friend, Dr. Pam Royall. Pam, would you mind telling folks a little bit about your background and your current role at EAB?

0:01:48.2 Pam Royall: I’d love to do so, Madeleine, and I’m so happy that I get to join you for one of your many podcasts. What I’d like to just add to the fact that I’ve been in this role at EAB for 25 years is that before that I was a university professor and my training was in marketing and consumer behavior. So I’ve always been interested and always studied how people make decisions in the marketplace. So when I have a chance to talk to students or parents about college choice, it’s exactly what I’ve been interested in for decades. What’s exciting about my role as head of research is that we do all the primary data collection. So most people will recognize that EAB is a research firm, but we have the opportunity to survey students and parents and other influencers on an ongoing basis. And this parent survey is something that we’ve been doing for quite a long time. I’m happy to say that we’ve got data back to 2010 when we started thinking about needing some formal input from parents about this college search process and their role.

0:03:11.1 Madeleine Rhyneer: So can you give us a little bit more background about the survey? So now we know you’ve been surveying parents since 2010. So that’s good longitudinal data and the opportunity to really track what has changed and then what hasn’t changed, what’s more important or less important over time. But what can you tell us a little bit about the size and the demographics of the respondents to this time’s parent survey?

0:03:35.0 Pam Royall: We are thrilled that we have over 2,500 responses or 2,500 individual parents that have been involved in this survey this year. And that number allows us to have representation from a wide variety of different segments. So we’ve got parents from all regions of the country. We have parents who are referring to students that are 9th graders, 10th graders, 11th graders, and 12th graders. Now the majority are parents of juniors and seniors at this stage. But we still have a lot of input from those that are talking about students that are younger and earlier in their high school careers. The other thing I would say about them is that they come from a range of household incomes and we like seeing that kind of diversity in our sample. We think it’s important, it’s something we test for. So when we have a chance to provide guidance based on segments, we’ve got that as our basis. I’ll note that the majority of parents in this sample have at least a bachelor’s degree themselves. And yet about two-thirds of them reported that when responding to questions they were thinking about the first child that they have in this college search process. So while they might have their own college-going experience to draw on, they don’t have a more contemporary experience. And I think that’s very significant as well.

0:05:20.6 Madeleine Rhyneer: Well, thank you for that. And we all know the angst that parents feel. And to go more broadly than parents, family supporters, whomever is working with students, it feels like the stakes are very high and it’s a confusing world for them right now. So I think that this data is gonna be really helpful to our listeners. So maybe you could summarize for us what really stood out to you in terms of what you learned this year.

0:05:46.0 Pam Royall: Well, I would lead with what I consider to be good news and that is that parents wanna hear from colleges and universities. They are very keen on schools having a parent-specific communications campaign. They don’t want you to assume that they’re looking over the shoulder of whatever their student is looking at. They really are interested in what you would want them to know in their parental role. Unfortunately, the average parent said what they’re getting from colleges is not great, not particularly helpful, and even one in five said they’re not getting any contact from schools at all. So this is kind of a call to action for many of our partners in that the expectation is you have something to say to parents and their ears are open, their eyes are open, they’re looking for it. And the feedback that we get in our surveys tell you what topics are most important. So we’ve got some really good intel on what the messaging can be focused on.

0:07:09.9 Madeleine Rhyneer: So, Pam, one of the things that I wonder about in my work with friends across the country is people often talk about, well, we don’t really know about parents until the student submits their application. And people have been saying this for a long time and I definitely understand that. But now I’m thinking, okay, well, with this call to action that you have just shared, it feels like there’s now a much stronger incentive for recruitment teams to actually figure out who is supporting a student in his or her search and then figure out ways to get information to that person. So are they asking for parent or family supporter email addresses at various times, and are they making it clear what the benefit is? Because we all know no one wants to give up their email address because they’re just thinking, well, what’s that gonna mean for me or am I just gonna get a bunch of baloney I don’t care about? So I’m thinking what you have on your website and the manner in which you interact with people and on campus visits, and if you’re off-campus visiting, that it ought to be a really high priority. And then to your point, because in the insight paper on this research, there is a grid that talks about what do parents want to know and when do they want to know it. And so enrollment teams, marketers can use that as a roadmap. So it’s not just, “I’m gonna be communicating with them,” because I think that also gets to your point about they’re either not hearing or what they’re hearing isn’t really getting at what it is that they want to know. And what that makes me think is maybe it’s more general institutional marketing, and they have some, it looks like they have some pretty specific things on their mind. So maybe you could talk about that, like, what are the other things that really stood out in the survey that our listeners would want to know?

0:08:53.4 Pam Royall: Well, and Madeleine, before I do that, I just want to support what you said about the need for the contact information. One of the things that we know is that this generation of college student wants their parent involved. So if you ask the student for their parent email address, they’re likely to provide it. So that’s another mechanism. It’s not just the face-to-face or indirect encounters with parents themselves, but using the student as a conduit is always helpful. So getting the contacts, increasing the number of families for whom you have a contact beyond just the student contact would be important. So let’s think about what we learned in terms of what they want to hear about. I’ll start with the premise that, and nobody will be surprised to hear me say, that parents are interested in college choices that are gonna make their student happy and successful. That may go without saying, but in this year’s results, we saw a shift in parents’ priorities when thinking about what a best-fit option might be for their student. And before I talk about these shifts, I want to be clear on the persistence of parents’ concerns regarding college costs. As we’ve seen in the past years, cost ranks first as parents’ greatest concern. The information that they want most from colleges is related to costs and financial aid. And the amount of money that a family ultimately spends on college is the one decision where parents exert the most influence. And in a new question that we asked this year for the first time, the amount of money that the family spends on college was revealed to be the most common source of disagreement between students and their parents. That said, one shift in priorities that we saw was a significant increase in the percentage of parents who identified students’ mental health and wellness as a top concern. So when they’re looking at college options, they want to see evidence of programs and practices, services, and environmental factors that really are proof points of a supportive environment for their students.

0:11:34.5 Pam Royall: Now, what’s interesting is we talked about our ability to track changes over time. We saw a modest drop in concern about mental health and wellness from 2022 to 2024. And when I looked at that, I thought, “Well, this is a little bit of a rebound from the COVID effects. So this is good news. This mental health… Mental wellness issue is not on the rise.” And then this year, in 2026, we saw that significantly more parents let us know that they were worried about their student’s ability to thrive on campus. And not only during their tenure on campus, but after graduation. Parents were thinking about the fact that their students seem to be more worried about this themselves, and that drove some of their concern. We’ve all been talking about the anxious generation. This is another example of how this anxious generation is being acknowledged within the household as one of the things that parents are hoping to moderate by college choice.

0:13:00.1 Madeleine Rhyneer: And then… So let me go back for a second to the thing about college cost, because again, as a longtime practitioner, and I’m sure our friends who are listening, they’re thinking, “Well, yeah, duh, that’s what everybody talks about all the time.” And of course there’s so much narrative in the media about college costs and exceeding the rate of inflation. The one thing that I would say about that is I think it is really always important, I think addressing cost is critical. But at the same time, my advice to our friends would be never talk about cost without talking about value. Because if you just talk about price and then the potential for discounting with need-based aid or merit-based scholarships if your institution offers them, you’re still only talking about a piece of the equation. And what you want to tie that to is, “What do I actually get for the investment that my family makes?” or “What is it that makes it worth it?” quote-unquote. And I know that we’re gonna dig into that a little bit more, but I just wanted to pause on that. And then I also was really interested in what you were saying about the anxious generation. I mean, we certainly see that. You see students sitting in a room and they’d rather text each other at the same table than actually talk. And so there is concern, especially if you’re going to a smaller institution where there’s the expectation you’re engaging in discussion in a classroom and asking questions and participating. For people who have been a little bit more reserved in their interactions with others, what is that gonna look like? And clearly students are worried about it, and it sounds like their parents are picking up on it, and then that makes the parents even more concerned about their family’s ready to, the student being ready to actually thrive in the environment.

0:14:40.2 Pam Royall: And that’s exactly right. I mean, parents said, “I’m worried because I know my child is worried.” And that is like a compounding effect. So really an important nuance of what we learned. But Madeleine, if I may talk for a minute about the college value question, because this is a very direct question that we ask students and parents in our routine surveying of both audiences, is we ask them what makes a college worth the cost. And what we found in our parent survey is that the top four non-financial factors that parents cite as related to their concerns or priorities are students’ career-oriented or career-related outcomes. So they looked at evidence of active learning opportunities on campus in the form of co-ops or internships. They thought about a school having more value when they could show they had successful job placement for their students after graduation and good career prospects more generally, and also earning potential. So what was most notable is from 2024 to 2026, we saw an 81% proportional increase in the percentage of parents that were citing employability as a top concern. And evidence of employability was one of the things that was proving the value of education in their minds or the cost of education in their minds.

0:16:40.9 Madeleine Rhyneer: That is just amazing. And some of my friends who may be listening have often heard me say there are really two things that we talk about in college recruitment, and that’s money, jobs, money, jobs, money, jobs. And money is both the money that I have the potential to earn post-graduation, but it’s really the money that would be invested in the cost of my education as a student. And I think that there’s… We all know it’s not just the investment of money, it’s the investment of time. And I also feel I have very high empathy for families. We all work with students who come from very diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, and it doesn’t matter what your family contribution is for college, it always feels like a lot. And so parents and family supporters really want to feel like, “I’m actually gonna get the outcome that I’m looking for, that return on investment.” We kind of hate to use that phrase, but that’s the way that I think. A lot of families are viewing this very pragmatically. College is no longer this sort of only transformative experience where you learn and think and write and interact with others and learn from one another and learn from very great faculty members, but the end product needs to be, “And this will lead to gainful employment at some point.” So we’ve already talked a little bit about that parents want to hear from you, and they want to hear from you sooner. And I mentioned this sort of, and then they told us what they wanted to know. So maybe you could share sort of the continuum of what it is that family supporters want to hear, want to read, hear, learn.

0:18:12.2 Pam Royall: The real strength of having a sample that includes parents of 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders is that we could look at topics of interest by student high school year. So now we start looking at the real data to inform a prescriptive communication strategy. And what we learned is that cost of attendance and financial support was something that is always of interest. You can’t start talking about it soon enough, and you shouldn’t let up on the gas, so to speak. They want to hear about what is available financially, what the types of financial support look like, what the likelihood of getting various forms of support is from the first year in high school through the senior year. Parents also, across all four years, want to hear about academic programs. Now, the call to action for us now is not just academic programs, but what that academic program means in terms of job opportunities or what comes next after graduation. And that, again, of interest to families from the beginning to the end of this process. And one of the things that we’ve been reporting recently is that this whole consideration process is extended well beyond what we used to think of as the recruitment cycle. I mean, we recruit well into their showing up on campus. The process continues. And then the other thing that I’m thinking about is that this 2026 edition of the parent survey included questions regarding AI for the first time. And this opens another can of worms, so to speak, in that how is AI being incorporated into classroom instruction? How is AI or the consequence of AI in terms of the workforce preparedness or job prospects being considered by faculty and in the curriculum as students are going through their college education? So we’ve got a new thing now that is also a top priority, but also another cause of anxiety, uncertainty, and concerns that families have.

0:21:05.7 Madeleine Rhyneer: Pam, were there any questions in the survey related to parent use of AI? Because of course, we’ve been surveying student use of AI as we’re tracking this exponential rise. Is there information in the survey about that?

0:21:18.8 Pam Royall: There is. And yet we were trying to focus on how they were feeling about AI effects on their student’s education and the outcomes, how they get jobs. But I will add something from a more recent survey with our students, an AI survey with students just this, just last month, where they reported, we asked them, “How many of your friends, what percentage of your friends are using AI? And what percentage of your parents are using AI?” And they reported 55% that their parents are engaged with AI. And we’ve started to think about what are the implications if AI becomes an information intermediary. Then we as institutions are somewhat at the mercy of what AI has to say about us. And strategically, we need to think about AI as another audience that we need to really be addressing. And we do that through our own research. We find out what Claude and Perplexity and other tools say about us. And imagine if that’s what a parent knows about us, how do we feel about it? Is it accurate? Is it what we want them to take away? And is it in fact beneficial in terms of how we’re positioned as an option for the family?

0:22:55.4 Madeleine Rhyneer: So I feel like what you’ve just shared in this results from students talking about what percent of their family supporters are using AI, I feel like that’s another really important call to action on a slightly different topic than communicate with parents earlier and more frequently about the things that they actually would like to learn from colleges and universities. But I think there’s now an even greater imperative to optimize for AI as an audience because you know that not only students are using it to inform their college search and list, but their family supporters are using the same tool. So that’s… I think that’s an important takeaway.

0:23:35.4 Pam Royall: And Madeleine, I would say that’s one of the things that we have to do sooner rather than later, right?

0:23:39.9 Madeleine Rhyneer: Yeah.

0:23:41.0 Pam Royall: That needs to be top priority, and it needs to be monitored over time because we all know how this is evolving.

0:23:51.1 Madeleine Rhyneer: Right. And I’m really glad that you said that, but I always feel a little bit guilty because we know from our work with colleges and universities across the country, the work is more complex and the resources are no greater. Most teams are not bigger than they were five or six years ago. In many cases, they have fewer financial resources, may have fewer human resources to be doing this really critical work. So when we’re telling them, “Oh wait, we don’t really have anything for you to subtract today, but we have one other really big action item for you to put on your agenda. And do you have a couple people you could put on like a task force to do a 60 or 30 to 60 day process to sort of figure out where you are?” And for the things that you can remediate, and I’m looking at you, institutional websites, that if there’s misinformation or gaps in information, the things you actually can control, I think that’s really important. And then knowing what people are learning about you, to your point, Pam, if you know what these LLMs are saying about you, then you actually can frame your own messaging for in-person interactions or how you might want to frame a presentation at a high school or to a group of campus visitors. So this is awesome. But I just want to be sure, are there any other pieces of the survey report that we haven’t talked about that you think are mission critical for people to at least get on their radar?

0:25:15.5 Pam Royall: I think the most important takeaway is that colleges have a tremendous opportunity to leverage parents as a student recruitment ally. They want to be involved, they’re looking for information, they’re best positioned to influence what is talked about and prioritized within the household. They are deeply involved in their students’ college search process and they’re keen to hear from colleges and universities. They were explicit about wanting this information to be shared with them directly. And I think the high rate of participation and all that they shared with us in terms of what is important to them provides the kind of guidance that colleges and universities need to set the priorities for those communications. So thinking about parents as a partner, an ally in the recruitment and enrollment exercise is really, really a top takeaway.

0:26:25.1 Madeleine Rhyneer: So what I think is fascinating about this is the evolution over time. I think about my long career on college and university campuses. And in many cases, we were really hoping to help students in their college search and application and then ultimate decision process to start to be more emerging autonomous adults. And it wasn’t that parents weren’t important because for teens, their parents are supporting this financially, but there was a bit of a more arm’s length relationship. You were really trying to have the relationship with the student. And what really has evolved over time is students not only being comfortable with their parents as key participants in this process, but absolutely reliant upon them and depending upon them for their wisdom, advice, counsel, sort of the yin and yang about how much, to your point, about the most point of contention is how much the family is going to be able to support financially. And so for those of us who are still thinking that these are, we hope, emerging adults, I think they’re not quite as emerging as they have been developmentally and that we need to embrace that as an opportunity as opposed to think like, gosh, we need you to do some things on your own. Yeah, we absolutely do, like go to class and study and learn. But on the front end, I think having a higher willingness to extend a helping hand. And the other thing that I think really came through in this loud and clear is I think the more that colleges and universities communicate with parents and family supporters directly, that actually removes some burden from students. I think the students would actually be really grateful. If you’re giving family members the information that they need, it takes pressure off the student where mom or dad or someone is asking awkward questions that the student may well be thinking about, but they don’t really necessarily have all the answers and they may not easily know other than AI how to find them.

0:28:19.9 Madeleine Rhyneer: So I think this is potentially a win for both audiences. And of course, I love it in an everybody wins scenario. But I think it’s time for us to recap. There’s a lot to unpack in this survey and I hope that our listeners will read the report. We’re gonna have a link to it in the show notes. So I hope you will take some time. Not only is there rich detail, but there are some great summaries that you might want to use as you’re working with your teams. But before we conclude, Pam, let’s talk about some of the concrete suggestions that our VPs of enrollment and marketing friends could be thinking about implementing in the next 90 days. And I want to summarize. We already have two things on the to-do list. One is conduct an audit of all the ways in which you ask for parent and family supporter information. Is there someone who’s supporting you in your college search? We’d love to be in touch with them and share really helpful information. Please share an email. So audit all the ways that you’re asking. And I would say amp it up, do it more. Send individual messages only asking for that to students and see what response you get. And then the second thing we put on your to-do list is do an audit of the LLMs and what they’re saying about you and fix the things. If there are things that need to be corrected, please fix those. And otherwise you can use that to prepare yourself for what it is that students and families might already be thinking about you. But what, I’m trying to think, what else would we advise our listeners to think about in the next couple of months?

0:29:47.3 Pam Royall: I would just say before leaving those two points, which are so critical and might seem overwhelming, is that they will be incrementally dealt with. Right? I mean, this is not something that you do in one sitting. You have to keep on that. You have to keep developing the contact list. You have to keep auditing the LLMs. But I think that what we hope to deliver with the full report is the tools that will allow institutions to prioritize. What do I want to say first? Because we’re saying earlier communication with families is better. Timing the specific content to when families think it would be most helpful in the freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior year. And the idea that we have in these survey findings some guidance on segments. So the way the parent audience as a whole can be segmented and addressed. And it may be segmented on the basis of those that come to campus visits or those that request information by mail. I mean, there are lots of ways to do segmentation that don’t require some demographic characteristic but are really based on the behaviors that parents are exhibiting.

0:31:17.6 Madeleine Rhyneer: So that’s the third to-do then, which is… ’cause I would say what you’re really talking about is a communication flow audit.

0:31:24.5 Pam Royall: Yes.

0:31:25.0 Madeleine Rhyneer: But I also would say on some of these pages, landing pages for academic programs, and also pages about cost, affordability, and aid, aid of all forms. I spend a lot of time on college and university websites, and it’s always like an onion. I mean, many of them, and I think people work really hard at this, but often they’re talking to people who are in the application process and it’s very, there are a lot of processes which are helpful. Like, this is the application for this, and this is how you do that, which is great. But I think sort of, maybe there’s helpful information that’s a link at the top that’s, “Hey, if you’re researching our cost and you’re researching aid and financing options, here’s a summary.” And it takes you to a different place that’s not about process, but is about all the ways that we’re helping and supporting families send their children here if this is the right fit. And again, that allows you, because on a regular financial aid process page, it feels a little awkward to talk about value and outcomes. But if you’re just making the case for why this is the single best investment you can make in your student’s future, it feels like something like that. So did I miss anything in that summary? What would you add?

0:32:34.1 Pam Royall: I just love the idea of looking for ways to talk about outcomes because that’s what families are looking for. That was higher than it has been in the past. And then also not failing to demonstrate that it is a campus where a student will get the kind of support that they need, that they’ll be part of a community and they’ll have a sense of belonging, and the things that became so critical when we very overtly recognized the mental health challenges that we have. At all ages, but particularly for this segment of young people.

0:33:19.9 Madeleine Rhyneer: So one thing that causes me to think about is think about the campus tour experience that students have. And we know that there are many flavors of that, especially for students who’ve been admitted and maybe they’ve already been on a general campus tour. But on a general campus tour, just in the same way that people usually walk by that career center, which is honestly not a point of distinction because everyone has one, but there also is opportunity to walk by your health center and counseling resources and just talk about it as a resource and opportunity. And maybe the tour guide talks a little bit about the way in which the university supported them as they were coming into the community to help them find their people and feel comfortable. And what that does is it normalizes that a lot of people are concerned about this, a lot of people are worried about it. But we’re not gonna talk about being worried, we’re just gonna talk about we have these resources and here’s how we help people.

0:34:11.6 Pam Royall: And the wellness center is not in some dingy basement, it’s not stuck in some corner. It is part of the infrastructure of the campus that students see every day as part of the normal course of business, which is really a way of saying this is important to us as well.

0:34:31.6 Madeleine Rhyneer: Exactly. It’s important to us because it’s important to our students.

0:34:36.0 Pam Royall: Exactly.

0:34:36.6 Madeleine Rhyneer: And we do this because we serve our students. Well, I think that about wraps it up. Pam, I want to thank you. This has been an incredibly fun conversation for me. I really appreciate the insights. I thank our listeners for joining, and I will hope that you will take the opportunity to look at the insight paper because there is a lot there that will help you moving forward. So thank you, and I hope you have a great day.

0:35:01.9 Pam Royall: Thanks to everyone for joining us.

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