For Parents, College Choice Is All About Cost

A new study from the enrollment-management consulting firm EAB found that parents and guardians helping students decide where to attend college are concerned mostly with cost and debt.

The report, based on a survey of over 1,600 parents, guardians and other primary caregivers, offers insight into the ways their priorities and anxieties have shifted in recent years and the increasingly dominant role affordability plays in their thinking about college choice. Sixty percent of respondents said cost was their top concern when sending their children to college, and the next two most common answers were also cost-related: 40 percent listed scholarships as a top priority and 39 percent named debt.

Michael Koppenheffer, EAB’s vice president for marketing and analytics and a co-author of the report, said the results show that colleges have much room for improvement in engaging with parents—not just around the chaos of this year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid, but in a more traditional financial aid cycle, too.

“Most institutions put very little effort into communicating with prospective parents about anything, let alone affordability,” he said. “It’s the best way to beat back myths about runaway tuition and help families understand, and manage, the true net cost of college.”

Parents across the socioeconomic spectrum value communication about affordability from prospective colleges, but that’s especially true of lower-income families. While 44 percent of parents from families making less than $90,000 a year and 42 percent of those making under $150,000 said they’d appreciate earlier outreach about how to pay for college, only 31 percent of those with annual household incomes over $150,000 said the same.

The importance of timely, clear communication about financial aid, scholarship opportunities and other affordability measures was put into stark relief by this year’s bungled rollout of the new FAFSA. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they had issues submitting the FAFSA with their child, and 49 percent said they didn’t receive their student’s financial aid package in time to make an informed college decision.

Bob Massa, former vice president for enrollment at Dickinson College and co-founder of the consulting firm Enrollment Intelligence Now, said the report illuminates the messaging challenge colleges face in communicating with families that are increasingly skeptical of investing in higher education for their children—and often ill-informed about the true cost of a college degree.

“Colleges need to do a much better job of communicating to families that sticker price is not net price, and there are ways to make college not just manageable but affordable,” he said. “That’s easier said than done … but colleges have often shied away from addressing that head-on with individual families, and I think that’s a mistake.”

Parents also tend to see “manageable” and “affordable” as synonymous: 48 percent said a “manageable” price meant taking on no debt, and 60 percent said it could mean taking on a little debt. Forty-one percent of parents said that the ability to earn a degree without going into any debt is the top factor in determining its value.

“Concerns about debt are not new, but they were more prominent and intense this year than in previous surveys,” Koppenheffer said. He attributed that in part to the heightened focus on student debt by policymakers and the media, as the Biden administration has fought to implement an ambitious debt-relief plan.

Students’ Worries are the Same

The survey also found that most parents’ perceptions about students’ top college concerns are wrong. Respondents thought students would be most concerned with career success and whether the college is a good fit for them; in reality, EAB data show that students’ concerns are the exact same as parents’: cost, debt and scholarships.

After cost, the next most common concerns among primary caregivers center on students’ mental health, their sense of belonging and academic success. Only 17 percent said they worried about whether their student would be admitted to a “top-choice school,” and 16 percent listed students’ career prospects after graduation.

Massa expressed surprise and dismay over the big gap in parental concerns about cost—which often falls on their shoulders—and about educational outcomes.

“I’m somewhat discouraged by what this report seems to be showing,” he said. “[Employment prospects] should be right at the top. Instead of ‘What are my children getting from this?’ it’s ‘What is this going to cost me?’”

Koppenheffer said this year’s report also showed that student safety is far less important to parents weighing their children’s college options than in previous years. But of the 32 percent who listed it as a top concern, nearly half said they were more worried about students’ mental health and emotional well-being than their physical safety.

“It’s a pretty tangible reminder that when families and students are assessing colleges, one of the things that they’re actually looking for is support for mental health and wellness,” he said. “That is quite a bit different than even a handful of years ago.”