When prospective students are scoping out potential colleges and universities, they are generally looking for affordable options, and schools with strong career counseling services. They find standardized testing and the college application itself to be extremely stressful. And a strong majority of students and their parents believe college will be worth the expense, stress and academic and other challenges.
These are some of the findings in the College Hopes & Worries Survey 2023, conducted by The Princeton Review, which surveyed 8,802 students and 3,423 parents across 50 states and the District of Columbia as well as some other countries for this year’s annual study.
Want to know the hopes, dreams and concerns of prospective students and their families who are applying to colleges and universities? Here are eight of the most compelling survey findings.
The college application process is stressing out students and parents. About three-fourths (72%) of respondents said that their stress level was very high or high. Approximately one third of parents and students identified the test-taking process as the toughest part of the applications process and another one-third cited completing applications for both admission and financial aid as the most stressful.
Opinions about standardized testing policies vary. Since COVID, many higher education institutions have implemented a no-testing or test-optional policy. A full 69 percent said the admission test policies don’t affect the student’s decisions to apply to schools. Approximately one-third (33%) of students planning to take the SAT or ACT and their parents said that they believe scores are considered in scholarship and financial aid decisions, and 44 percent believe the scores can distinguish their application in a pool of others under consideration.
Most students and their parents expect to pay a lot for higher education. More than two-thirds believe they’ll have to pay more than $75,000 for college or university. About 44 percent said they expect higher education will cost more than $100,000.
A majority of students and parents hope for financial aid to help them pay for school. A full 82 percent of respondents said that financial aid will be extremely or very necessary to fund a college degree. Only 2 percent said financial aid is not at all important.
Parents and students are most concerned with debt when they apply to colleges and universities. More than two in five (42%) respondents said that paying for the degree is their biggest worry, while 27 percent were most concerned with how they’ll pay for the degree if they get into their first-choice college.
Strong career services can help distinguish colleges and universities. When students and parents were asked if they were able to compare colleges based on their career services offerings, 61 percent said strong career services offerings would either strongly or very much affect the decision to apply to or attend a specific college or university.
Commitment to environmental responsibility is not a major factor in students’ decisions to apply to or attend a school. Only 27 percent of students and parents said that practices concerning energy use, recycling and other measures would contribute to their decision.
The quality of a school’s health and wellness services is a factor in college choices, but not a strong determinant. Approximately 45 percent of students and parents said that information about a college’s health and wellness center services would contribute to the decision to apply. Another 41 percent said that information is only somewhat important.