The 2013-14 academic year marks a half-decade since the economic recession hit, but concerns about the costs of attending college are influencing incoming freshmen more than ever, a new survey shows as reported by InsideHigherEd.
“While more than three-quarters of this year’s freshmen were admitted to their first-choice institution, an all-time low of 56.9 percent chose to attend it. Nearly 46 and 48 percent — both all-time highs — said price and financial aid, respectively, were “very
important” in their decision about which institution to attend. Among students who were accepted but did not enroll at their first-choice institution, about a quarter said lack of financial aid from that college was a very
important factor in their decision, and 60 percent said the same of being offered financial aid from the institution they chose to attend.
“The record-setting numbers are not an anomaly. Last year’s survey found that financial concerns increasingly affected students’ decision-making in ways both educational (where to attend college and what to study) and personal (why to attend and whether to live on campus). So it appears the impact of the 2008 economic recession has only gotten stronger from year to yea
“As state economies have recovered, we haven’t really seen all of those dollars come back into higher education, and it’s concerning that they may be gone for good,” said Kevin Eagan, interim director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at the University of California at Los Angeles, which publishes the report annually. “Institutions cannot be too comfortable resting on their laurels and expecting that academic reputation will carry as much weight, or more weight, than any other factor in whether admitted students choose to enroll.”
“The annual survey is The American Freshman: National Norms. The report is usually released in January, but last fall’s federal government shutdown delayed the results because the U.S. Education Department’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, on which CIRP relies for the report, was blocked for a time. The survey includes 165,743 first-time, full-time students entering 234 four-year American colleges and universities of varying selectivity and type. Continue reading “Those starting college worry about money”