For Parents, College Choice Is All About Cost

A new study from the enrollment-management consulting firm EAB found that parents and guardians helping students decide where to attend college are concerned mostly with cost and debt. The report, based on a survey of over 1,600 parents, guardians and other primary caregivers, offers insight into the ways their priorities and anxieties have shifted in recent years and the increasingly dominant role affordability plays in their thinking about college choice. Sixty percent of respondents said cost was their top concern when sending their children to college, and the next two most common answers were also cost-related: 40 percent listed scholarships as a top priority and 39 percent named debt.