community college

Although school administrators across the nation are reporting an increase in applications, they’re worried about just how many college students will actually enroll in their institutions this fall as families continue to tighten their budgets amid this recession, reports Inside Higher Ed (“Parents’ View of the Economy,” March 30, 2009).

However, a new survey of parents of college students indicates that while administrators’ concerns are valid, the economy may not have affected parents’ finances as much as educators originally thought, particularly among parents whose children are entering their freshmen year. Eduventures, an organization that tracks higher education trends, surveyed 7,000 parents with college-age children at a mix of 19 public and private colleges and universities.

Eduventures found that a majority of parents with freshmen — about 66 percent — said the downturn won’t affect how they will finance their children’s education this upcoming fall.

Overall, relatively few parents told Eduventures that they would not enroll their children in college due to lack of funding, although some parents indicated that they might choose to enroll their children in less expensive institutions to cut costs.

Of those parents with students at private schools, less than 12 percent indicated that their children were considering transferring to a less expensive school, and nearly 7 percent said they would encourage their children to take some classes at a community college. Of these same private school parents, less than 3 percent indicated that their students wouldn’t be returning to college in the fall, and less than 0.5 percent said that their children were considering dropping out of college permanently.

The numbers were only slightly different for parents whose children attend public colleges, with almost 9 percent saying that their children may have to consider transferring schools and less than 3 percent who believed that their children would need to look at dropping out of college. Nearly 6 percent of these parents thought that their children would need to live at home instead of on campus this fall.