ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE via COLLEGIATE PRESSWIRE)--March 30, 2006--The first-ever national survey of current college parents revealed that today's parents are in consistent contact with their children and that they utilize, to a very high degree, the programs that college and universities have created in recent years to facilitate parental involvement.
The National Survey of Parent Experiences was conducted by College Parents of America (www.collegeparents.org) and completed online by approximately 900, or about 2 percent, of the organization's 40,000 members and subscribers who have children currently in college.
"Parents of today's college students have come to be called helicopter parents because of the perception that they hover, hover and hover some more over the lives of their children, choosing to land whenever and wherever they want," said James A. Boyle, president, College Parents of America. "While many can disagree about the desirability of parents taking such an active role, what our survey demonstrates is that no one can argue with the reality of such behavior."
Boyle added: "The time for hand-wringing and eye-rolling by college and university administrators is over; the good thing about parents being involved is that it is much better than the alternative. Now, I hope that forward-thinking schools will realize they can channel this parental involvement in positive and productive support of what should be everyone's principal goal - student success in school and student achievement of life skills, as necessary components of preparation for a productive and happy life."
According to the College Parents of America survey, 74 percent, or three in four, of current college parents communicate at least "two to three times a week" with their sons or daughters while they are at college or university, with 34 percent, or more than one in three, having such communication on at least a daily basis.
How do parents communicate? Cell phone seems to be the mode of choice, with 90 percent of respondents saying that they use a mobile connection to frequently stay in touch, as opposed to the much lower figure of 25 percent who use a landline phone connection. In fact, more than one-half of all respondents, 52 percent, say that they either rarely or never use a regular landline phone.
E-mail is popular too, according to the survey, with 58 percent using it frequently. Perhaps laying open an inter-generational technical disconnect, only 29 percent of parents claim to use instant messaging frequently, while a clear majority of 54 percent claim to use IMing rarely or not at all.
The U.S. Postal Service is not too busy in college towns: only 7 percent of parents utilize regular mail frequently, and 69 percent either rarely or never utilize mail at all.
That's not to say, however, that all communication is electronic, as parents like to visit in person, from the beginning and continuing throughout their child's collegiate experience. Nine in 10 respondents said yes when asked whether they attended parent orientation when their child first enrolled at a college or university, and 75 percent say that they visit campus at least once or twice a semester, with 17 percent visiting at least once a month or more.
"Given the above, it's not surprising that 72 percent of current college parents strongly agree or agree with the following statement put to them in our survey: 'I feel that my child's college or university includes parents in the school community'," said College Parents of America's Boyle.
When asked to compare the level of involvement and communications they have with their child, as compared to the level of parental improvement they experienced themselves when in college, a huge plurality - 74 percent - said that they were much more or more involved than their own parents. Less than four percent said that they were less or much less involved.
What does "involvement" mean, exactly? One way to measure that is through tools utilized, and more than 61 percent of parents said that they utilized their school's "parent-oriented Web site." But the College Parents of America survey also tried to get at the question of concerns among parents regarding their children, and "academics" topped the list, with 34 percent or more than one in three parents citing that topic as the area of greatest concern, followed by "finances" at 24 percent and "career planning" and "health and safety" both at 12 percent.
When asked, however, the pointed question of "this year, on which topic has your student most requested advice or assistance from you?" then the order shifts, with finances cited as the most-asked about topic by 35 percent, and academics by 19 percent. Health and safety concerns don't seem to be brought up much by the students, as only 5 percent of parents mentioned that as the topic of most requested
advice or assistance.
The College Parents of America National Survey on Parent Experiences generated responses from 49 of 50 states and the District of Columbia. The vast majority - 91 percent - are parents of freshmen or sophomores, so Boyle made a point of mentioning that the answers to these questions will serve as benchmark data that can be tracked over the next couple of years and beyond.
A summary of the survey can be found at:
College Parents of America is the nation's only membership organization dedicated to advocating for and providing practical information to parents of current and college-bound students. College Parents of America, based in Arlington, Virginia, also provides discounts on a broad variety of educational and consumer products to help members save money while their children prepare for, apply to and make the transition to college.
NOTE: James A. Boyle, president of College Parents of America, will be presenting the findings of the survey this afternoon at 3 PM ET before the conference of Administrators Promoting Parent Involvement (APPI), held annually in Boston. He is available for phone interviews before and after his presentation at 571-213-3979.
