What Drives Enrollment Decisions Today: Demonstrated Value
May 20, 2026 | Michelle Mulder
Students and families want to know that their degree has value and will help them obtain not just a job, but a career. With roughly half of adults (49%) saying it’s less important to have a four-year college degree today to get a well-paying job than it was 20 years ago, students increasingly question whether college is worth the cost.
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
Demonstrate Your Institution’s Value
The last ten years of peer-to-peer conversation shifted the college admissions narrative to prioritize value and outcomes over institutional prestige. As students and families consider a healthier approach to college admissions, the value the institution offers and the program reputation is more important for driving the outcomes they’re looking for.
Historically, students and families say they value prestige when searching for college. But prestige hardly shows up in the overall admissions conversation. Instead, we see it in general conversations about what makes a good college.
Social intelligence helps campuses understand what aspects of their institution drive outcomes and perception of value so you can give prospective students specifics about what to expect with a degree from your campus.
Recommendation: Communicate what’s in it for students so they can see that a degree is possible for someone who looks or lives like them.
The recommendation overlaps with the Dream School dimension of “delivery of value to undergraduates.” Read the book’s appendix to learn more about your institutional data that may support our recommendation.
Take Action: Reposition Your Brand Narrative
Showcase program-level excellence rather than your campus as a whole to help students more clearly see how and where they fit and what they’ll get out of their degree.
Strategic Support
A private, medium-sized college in the East set out to elevate its storytelling efforts to build awareness, shape perception, and foster cross-campus collaboration in support of a stronger, more cohesive brand narrative.
Social intelligence data and insights surfaced storytelling opportunities to support the team’s needs. Integrating storytelling into the larger brand strategy helped the team consistently elevate key messaging, personalize the brand, and establish authenticity. The stories also offered opportunities to spotlight areas of expertise on campus, increasing awareness in niche fields or specialized offerings. For example, when social intelligence surfaced stories and topics showing how the arts are intrinsic to the college’s conversation, the team used it as a storytelling opportunity to spotlight their arts programs and successful alumni experiences.
The focus on storytelling helped prospective students see specifically what set the college apart from the other schools on their list, rather than generic descriptions that could describe any similar institution. Integrating relatable, differentiated stories throughout the marketing strategy encouraged audience engagement and connectivity, and contributed to an increase in enrollment.
Take Action: Use Data to Support Outdated Reputational Bias
Combat outdated reputational bias among key stakeholders with data-informed marketing strategies.
Strategic Support
A small, private college in the Midwest had lower brand awareness and perception than many of their competitors due to a high presence of political discourse in their conversation.
The college had a history as a progressive institution, making it a frequent target for media agitators who used it as an example for a political point. Social intelligence analysis offered opportunities to reframe the college’s messaging in ways that evoked emotions and drove positive sentiment. Generating more owned content also gave campus leaders greater control around their brand identity and strategic messaging.
The changes strengthened their identity and helped them lean into their values, reducing detractors and reinforcing their brand pillars. They expanded their social media presence to support brand positioning beyond the campus community, giving them more opportunities to increase awareness, elevate their mission and values, engage alumni and donors, and support recruitment and revenue generating efforts.
Take Action: Promote Students’ Ability to Thrive Regardless of Prestige
Highlight students or alumni from lesser-known programs to demonstrate your dedicated support and success.
Strategic Support
A private liberal arts college in the Northeast held strong regional name recognition but wanted to understand how that reputation compared to the peer institutions students weighed against them. A value and perception assessment found students didn’t associate the college with academic prestige or selectivity the way they did its closest competitors—but they consistently described its small class sizes and direct faculty access as delivering more real-world value than larger, higher-ranked peers offered.
The college used the finding to reposition around demonstrated value rather than compete on prestige it didn’t have—leading with faculty accessibility and outcomes messaging instead of a rankings comparison it couldn’t win.
1 Rebuilding Public Trust in Higher Education: A Social Intelligence Report. Campus Sonar, 2024.