Did you know that 81% of parents consider college financial aid packages to be one of the top factors they consider in the college selection process, but only 25% say that the information they receive about aid is complete, useful, and easy to understand?

Those insights, gleaned from a 2025 report issued by Campus ESP, illustrate the conundrum facing colleges and universities today as they struggle with initiatives related to yield and retention. While aid matters a great deal, many institutions aren’t doing an adequate job helping parents and families understand the value of a college education and make well-informed enrollment decisions.

Perspectives From Campus and Beyond

To provide higher ed leaders with insights about how to do a better job of delivering the right messages at the right time, Liaison and Campus ESP recently cohosted a webinar, Win Yield Through Family Confidence: Communicating Financial Aid and ROI Effectively, that focused on how:

  • Tailoring financial aid communications gets parents’ attention (and action).
  • Consistent, transparent updates delivered through a parent portal build trust.
  • Tracking engagement gives teams a measurable edge during the decision window.

The session was hosted by Campus ESP CEO and Co-founder Dave Becker, who was joined by Liaison Vice President of Business Development Todd Abbot and University of Nevada-Las Vegas Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management Barb Roberts. Together, they addressed the key aspects of communicating about financial aid and the ROI of earning a college degree.

Education Is an Investment. How Do You Help Families Navigate How to Afford It?

“With the earlier launch of the FAFSA, there has been a real shift in the involvement of families as students and parents started doing things earlier. That gives them a longer runway to try to figure things out,” Roberts said. “Now with all the changes to federal aid it's an even bigger conversation. Everyone is very nervous. People are really uncertain. We try to help navigate this is by being available everywhere all the time and trying to be super clear with definitions.

“I'm a first-generation college student,” she added. “My family had no idea what any of these things meant. Now I I think through that lens when I'm working with my daughters on financial aid. There are things that I get from some institutions that I wouldn’t understand if I weren’t in higher ed. Figuring that out, and figuring out not only what it means but then how it relates to paying the bill, is a serious process for a lot of our families.”

As Abbot noted, addressing those concerns often requires institutions to rethink how they communicate with families to develop the confidence they need to move forward.

“You need to get involved earlier,” he said. “For years, the model in higher ed was to send the financial aid information out to students, and maybe their families, after a student has decided to attend. Then they’d send the information about how to pay for it. I've talked with campuses a lot to say, ‘OK well why do you do it that way? Let's think of ways to breakdown the process and think of ways we can we be more clear in terms of the information that we're providing up front.’”

Abbot recommends that campuses leaders put themselves in the position of a consumer trying to make an important financial decision. For example, when you buy a car you need to know more than just the price, he said. You also need to figure out how to pay for it and all the related expenses. Institutions that help families address those questions early on have a leg up on those that leave them guessing.

Cost v. Value: How Do You Help Families Understand the Difference?

During the session, Becker took the conversation in the next logical direction, asking how institutions can help families understand the return on investment when it comes to education.

“We talk about value versus cost,” Roberts said. “How much will you have to pay out of pocket versus what you can earn on the other end?”

Families, she said, want to know how graduates are getting their jobs and how schools help students get jobs and internships.

“In higher ed, we don't talk about that the same way that families talk about it,” she said. “We talk about outcomes data, but how many families go to a website and because they want to see the outcomes data? We really need to reframe what that term is and how we are talking about the value of a degree from our institutions.”

Family Engagement Moves the Needle. But How Do You Get Buy-In?

As Abbot pointed out, having the right technology and using it strategically makes it easier and more efficient to communicate meaningfully with the families of potential enrollees.

“When we communicated 10 years ago, we communicated to the masses. I think institutions now understand that there are opportunities to really enhance what they are doing with parents. There is technology now that allows you to customize your communication based on whether the audience is a first-gen family or if they have low income, for example. That has also allowed more and more institutions to go explore and take advantage of some unique opportunities to really ramp up what they’re doing with different students and families.”

Nudging the Nudgers

Abbot also pointed out that technological innovation has brought new relevance to traditional methods of communication, such as print on demand, making it easier to “nudge the nudgers.” While students often have access to portals with information about financial aid, parents may not always see that material. Online parent portals and direct mail addressed to the parents can bring them into the conversation and help remove information roadblocks.

“Students want to be wanted and families want to be wanted,” he said. “It's really important for us to continue to lean into that.”

To learn more about how to do that, watch Win Yield Through Family Confidence: Communicating Financial Aid and ROI Effectively.