College decision time: Longitudinal data spotlight

It’s college decision time

It’s the time of year when college acceptances are rolling out to mailboxes and inboxes nationwide. Eager college goers are receiving thick or thin envelopes or emails, crunching financial aid offers, talking to their families and friends, and weighing their options.

While the decisions about where and when to enroll are different for every college hopeful, there are some factors that we know from evidence that many students consider.

Frequently, we see cost, quality and program offerings to be among the most important reasons students are choosing between postsecondary programs, colleges, trade schools and campuses where they’ll find themselves in the coming months.

Students in one NCES study of high schoolers, when asked about the institutions where they applied and ended up enrolling, predominately reported cost to be a “Very Important” factor in their college or trade school choice.

But, interestingly, the data also show that academic quality and program offerings are very important factors in students’ decisionmaking, right up there with cost.

Why are longitudinal survey data important to this picture?

Students do not take this decision lightly. It might be where they spend the next few years of their lives, after all.

While many college students do transfer between colleges (it was 30% for this group of students), we know that, by and large, the first institution is the one that most students are still enrolled in when surveyed several years later.

Having long-term information on these students’ attitudes, both before and after these crucial decisions, sheds light on this important decision point. It might also point to those students most likely to leave or transfer institutions, helping institutions know where to target their support.

These long-term data also provide information on how to assist future decisionmakers, such as providing evidence and inputs to data tools like the College Navigator.

For those of you supporting decisionmakers this spring: help them have the data handy.