What Drives Enrollment Decisions Today: Career Pathways
July 8, 2026 | Michelle Mulder
The skills students want from college extend beyond employability, supporting economic growth. Our research on public trust in higher education1 found the public believes the purpose of higher ed is to gain value from the degree. Audiences regularly question the value of post-secondary degrees, whether the outcomes are “worth it,” and what value they gain.
Median earnings of bachelor’s degree recipients were $31,200 (62%) higher in 2024 than those of high school graduates according to College Board’s Education Pays 2026 research.2
A partnership with Jeff Selingo for his book Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right For You, prompted us to explore recent online college admissions conversation. The insights and themes we uncovered motivated us to return to our analyses of the college decision-making journey over the past ten years.
Jeff Selingo’s book guides students and families to look beyond elite schools by identifying seven measurable dimensions of a “good school” that most rankings don’t capture. We developed actionable strategies from our research to help campuses improve their student-centric approach by focusing on recruiting and enrolling students based on individual fit, ensuring future success for students and sustainable institutions.
Actionable Strategy
Emphasize Career Pathways
The message from students and families is clear—they want to understand the career pathways associated with a program or college. 20% of peer-to-peer admissions conversation is about the specific skills needed for jobs. Students ask the opinions of peers, current students and alumni; and specifically seek advice on the internship pipeline, type of alumni network they might build, and available experiential learning opportunities.
Students want to know: What type of job? Who's gotten that job before? Does the job pay a living wage? How can they rise to the top in today’s tough job market? The answers to these questions are critical to prospective students.
Recommendation: Clearly tell students about the outcomes, career exploration and preparation, and hands-on learning opportunities on your campus. They want to know they have a clear path from education to job to career.
The recommendation overlaps with the Dream School dimension of “job prospects for undergraduates.” Read the book’s “New” Dream Schools appendix to learn more about your institutional data that may support our recommendation.
Take Action: Integrate Employer Partnerships
Actively showcase employer partnerships in your admissions marketing.
Strategic Support
A mid-size public university wanted to understand how its career-pathways messaging compared to the flagship institutions students in its state most often considered alongside it. Prospective students associated the flagship schools with name-brand employer connections but described this university’s actual internship placement rates as just as strong once they learned about them—the difference was the visibility of the pathways, not their substance.
The university built its career-services partnerships and hands-on learning opportunities into top-of-funnel messaging instead of saving them for later in the admissions process, closing the perception gap with schools that had stronger name recognition but comparable outcomes.
Take Action: Emphasize Support
Highlight the availability of career services at every stage of the student journey.
Strategic Support
A state higher education system needed to understand how to attract and retain first-generation college students, including what support elements the students perceived as most valuable.
Social intelligence revealed that the most valuable support element for first-generation students is affordability, with financial guidance, mentorship, and academic/career counseling following closely behind. First-generation students look for support “making sense of things” related to their educational and career plans.
Aligning experience and perception is critical as the organization’s member institutions build trust with their target audience. At the system level they can influence public perception by amplifying positive student experiences and success stories. At the campus level, developing content that captures lived experiences will help students discover value. Personal stories strengthen the value of a degree and demonstrate how it sets students up for long-term success.
The actionable recommendations from social intelligence elevate the ROI of the member institutions and emphasize how they can connect the dots between the three main support systems (financial guidance, mentorship, and academic/career counseling) to help students take actionable steps that meet their education and career goals.
Take Action: Highlight Success Stories
Demonstrate how experiential learning helps students find direction and success through internships, on-campus research, and other hands-on opportunities.
Strategic Support
The University of Arkansas–Fort Smith (UAFS) wanted to understand demand and perception for growing program areas to address regional industry goals and workforce needs. As part of their strategic plan, UAFS committed to creating and sustaining their five Centers for Excellence, developed in response to labor shortages spanning various sectors of Arkansas. The strategy includes community engagement, industry partnerships, and experiential learning.
Social intelligence supported their efforts in expanding three of the Centers with insight into market demand, audience perception, and comparator programs; enabling UAFS to leverage the hands-on learning aspects of the programs to market them.
The data science analysis found a disconnect between workforce readiness and employer qualifications and a lack of online presence for competitors’ data science programs. The insights provided an opportunity for UAFS to highlight student successes and innovative research.
The advanced manufacturing findings were similar in that campuses rarely marketed their programs online and students were unsure about career paths. UAFS leveraged the data to promote their unique program offering and hands-on learning facilities.
The respiratory therapy program results provided opportunities for UAFS to differentiate their program and build awareness for their pathways to employment, clinical experience, and supportive learning environments.
1Rebuilding Public Trust in Higher Education: A Social Intelligence Report. Campus Sonar, 2024.
2 Education Pays: Trends in Higher Education. College Board, 2026. https://research.collegeboard.org/trends/education-pays