Prospective Student – a spring 1999 high school graduate or fall 1999 senior
Parent – parent of child/children currently in high school or spring 1999 graduate

Reasons for choosing a particular college:
 

	Prospects	Parents *
Low cost	42.5%	27.1%
Quality of instruction	71.3%	66.1%
Variety of programs	78.4%	64.4%
Convenience	62.2%	52.5%
Small class size	51.8%	39.0%
Live in dorm/on own	61.7%	42.4%
Availability of financial aid	65.6%	37.3%

 
* Parents' perception of child's reason for choosing a college.

Prospective students considered more factors when selecting a college than parents are aware of. While the prioritizing of these factors does not differ dramatically, consideration of financial aid was a noted exception. Prospects were far more likely to have considered financial aid in making their decision than parents were aware.

Influence of parents:
 

	Prospects	Parents
None	6.6%	10.3%
Little	14.6%	.
Some	28.1%	32.7%
Much	50.6%	57.0%

 
Although prospects rated parental influence higher than any other influence, parents perceive their magnitude of influence higher than indicated by prospects.
 
Checking out colleges:
 

Prospects are:	Prospects	Parents	Parents encouraging with:
Visiting campuses	52.9%	73.9%	Visiting campuses
Using internet resources	65.7%	86.1%	Using internet resources
Using library resources	37.5%	85.5%	Using library resources
Using materials from mail	86.5%	86.7%	Using materials from mail
Contacting colleges	58.8%	77.6%	Contacting colleges

 
While parents claim to encourage and/or assist their children with all facets of college research, prospects clearly focus their attention on materials received in the mail. The most notable discrepancy is with library resources (parents encourage library use, prospects use library resources less than any resource listed).

 Considered community college to:
 

	Prospects	Parents
Have considered CC	45.4%	42.0%
Prepare to transfer *	83.7%	90.5%
Earn 2 year degree *	28.3%	62.5%
Get specialized training *	14.0%	70.2%

 
* Percents based on those who considered community college.

Both groups indicated that less than half had considered a community college. Parents were far more likely to believe their children were considering community college for various options; while prospects tended to focus on community college as a means of preparing to transfer to a four-year university.
 
Comparing community college to university (where 0 = worse than 4 year, 1 = same as 4 year, 2 = better than 4 year):
 

	Prospects	Parents
Cost	1.72	1.84
Convenience	1.63	1.80
Small size	1.41	1.56
Quality of teaching	1.07	1.11
Variety of courses	0.98	1.16
Employment opportunities	0.92	1.00
Extracurricular activities	0.74	0.80

 
Parent evaluations of community colleges are systematically higher than prospect evaluations; although the differences are not profound (grand mean of 1.32 for parents versus 1.21 for prospects). Part of this difference may be attributed to parental experience with community colleges (55% of parents attended a community college). The rankings are almost identical, with cost and convenience being rated most favorably by both groups.
 
Institutional awareness:
 

Correctly identified by locals:	Prospects	Parents
Brookhaven	84.6%	32.9%
Cedar Valley	70.4%	27.6%
Eastfield	71.6%	14.3%
El Centro	62.5%	19.4%
Mountain View	82.0%	24.6%
North Lake	.	81.5%
Richland	88.0%	75.0%
Average (weighted)	76.1%	39.8%

 
Prospects were clearly more capable of identifying the DCCCD college in whose service area they lived. While Richland provided the most comparable recognition, Eastfield provided the most dramatic difference. On the average, prospects were able to correctly identify 2.0 DCCCD colleges, while parents were able to identify 2.2 DCCCD colleges. This may suggest that parents have a slightly better awareness of the district, while prospects have a better awareness of their local area.

Data Source: Data collected by Greene Marketing Services via telephone survey fall 1998 and spring 1999.
Prepared by Edward Hummingbird, August 18, 1999

Internal Reports & Summaries