2024 Prospective Family Engagement Report

Families are now an undeniable part of prospective students' college search process. As American higher education stands at the precipice of profound demographic shifts, colleges and universities must reexamine how they engage not just prospective students, but their families as well. In collaboration with Ardeo and CampusESP, RNL collected and analyzed the findings of 11,309 families with college-bound students from across demographic and geographic backgrounds. The key findings from this 2024 Prospective Family Engagement Report highlight the considerations and inclinations that shape families' awareness and decision-making processes. Insights cover subjects such as their comfort with distance from home, type of information they value, communication channels and the frequency with which they hope to hear from institutions, and their concerns about financing their students' degree. Importantly, the 2024 research underscores how family income, generational status, and ethnicity can shape these categories. The authors' hope is that leaders in higher education institutions find the resulting recommendations to be a practical guide for developing proactive, targeted strategies to engage diverse families in the college planning process.