I am an admitted mamma’s boy from way back. So, I have always given a bit more sway to my parents’ thoughts and feelings than I probably needed to over the years.
A rebel, I am not.
However, if the results of a recent survey are to be believed, perhaps universities and colleges would be wise to heed some parental advice – at least every now and then.
In many ways, parents are silent partners within the postsecondary education landscape. Our talk usually centres around students, faculty and staff, alumni, friends and donors, even politicians and corporate partners. But rarely do parents enter the equation.
Oh sure, institutions will throw a Parents’ Day here and there, maybe a politician will toss them a partisan bone from the campaign trail every once in a while. We’ll offer them a big ‘thank you’ at Convocation. But as a rule, parents are absent from the public discussions and debates surrounding postsecondary education. So, when is the last time The Agenda with Steve Paikin hosted someone representing the parental voice on his panel?
And that’s too bad.
You see, in many ways, parents are postsecondary education’s largest stakeholder.
From the start, university life is a joint venture for many of today’s students. More than 60 per cent of North American college and university students said they made the decision on what school to attend in consultation with their parents. (One study showed 15 per cent of parents made the decision for their child without any consultation.) When it comes to international students, that number was even higher.
Once on campus, ties still bind. In the last Survey of Graduating Students, parents represented the largest source of financial assistance to Western students. More than 48 per cent of students counted on their parents to get them through school – nearly double the number who counted on repayable loans.
For students, that is good news. Parental financial assistance contributed heavily to the fact nearly a third of Western students graduate debt free.
We bill university students as burgeoning adults. And that’s true. But for most students, when it comes to picking up the tab for their education, the tether to home remains taut.
So, who can blame parents for wanting decision-makers to understand their concerns?
If you believe media reports, parents are only worried about the financial costs of higher education. And while they are, that concern ranked well behind some others that don’t get as much publicity, according to a recent survey.
For parents, when asked to rank issues on a scale of 1 to 10, the most important desires in a university or college were a safe environment (7.4 out of 10), acquisition of real-world marketable skills (7.3/10), institution is a good fit (7.2/10), a first-rate academic experience (7/10) and then affordability (6.3/10). That’s an interesting blueprint for postsecondary success in the eyes of parents.
However, after inquiring about those desires, the survey then asked parents with kids in university/college how well their child’s institution delivered. There were “some significant gaps between what parents wanted and what they think they got.” Acquisition of real-world marketable skills dropped to 4.4 out of 10, a first-rate academic experience to 5.1/10 and affordability to 4.3/10.
That’s more than a gap in expectations – that’s a chasm.
Then there are the issues universities often wrap themselves in that don’t resonate outside the walls. Only 28 per cent of parents thought it was very important their child be exposed to racial and cultural diversity, only 22.5 per cent to economic diversity and only 15 per cent to political diversity. Even fewer parents were concerned about university rankings (less than 15 per cent).
Parents were concerned about two issues, in particular – enforcement of a sexual assault code (82 per cent) and college understanding of the financial pressures on middle-class families (76 per cent).
The good news is these expressed concerns of parents mirror many of the efforts already being undertaken on postsecondary campuses – including this one.
But there remains a disconnect in the overall conversation. Parental voices need to be louder.
And you don’t need to be a mamma’s boy like me to see there is value in what they are saying.