If you lead enrollment, marketing, or student success, you already know the uncomfortable truth. When prospective students ask, “Is this worth it?”, you need proof from people who lived the experience.
That’s the story behind this project.
A university serving a large share of working adult learners wanted a clear, repeatable way to measure alumni sentiment, support value, and career impact over time, then turn those insights into practical enrollment messaging.
Drive Research ran an online alumni survey using a client-provided contact list, focused on graduates from the past decade. Fieldwork took place in fall 2025, and the survey was designed to be quick to complete while still capturing what higher education decision-makers need for action.
The findings helped the institution prioritize what to message, what to improve, and what to measure over time to support enrollment growth.
The institution came to our higher education market research company with a straightforward goal: generate fact-based alumni insights that could be reused across enrollment and marketing efforts.
More specifically, the study was designed to:
We built and fielded a custom online survey and kept it intentionally focused. The alumni survey included a mix of rating-scale KPIs, agreement statements, and open ends to capture the why behind the numbers.
A few choices mattered a lot here:
A defined alumni window
The sample targeted alumni from the past decade, which helped the institution compare perceptions over time while still reflecting today’s student experience.
A survey that respected alumni time
We designed the instrument to be completed in under 10 minutes, because long surveys reduce participation and often increase low-quality responses.
Data quality safeguards
Before fielding, we QA’d survey logic and wording for clarity. After fielding, we reviewed open ends and response patterns to ensure results were usable and credible for leadership discussions.
One of the most actionable items in alumni studies is a “top-of-mind association” prompt, for example:
“When you think of your university, what is the first word that comes to mind?”
This single question often becomes a north star for messaging, because it reflects what alumni actually carry forward, not what a brand guide hopes they do.
The institution received:
An executive summary with key themes and implications
1) Flexibility was the signature strength
Alumni consistently described the institution as flexible. It showed up in brand associations, satisfaction drivers, and agreement statements.
That finding is especially relevant for campuses competing for adult learners.
Outside research supports the same theme: in a dataset of 10,600 adult learners, nearly 90% preferred hybrid or online-only learning modalities.
The practical takeaway is not “put flexibility on a billboard.”
It is “define what flexibility means here,” such as scheduling, modality options, course pacing, support availability, and clarity of expectations.
2) Alumni described clear career momentum
Across the study, alumni feedback reinforced the idea of career impact. Many described new opportunities, expanded responsibilities, or income growth after graduating.
You do not need to publish specific outcome numbers to use this well.
In higher ed marketing, the safest and most credible move is connecting outcomes to proof points alumni can describe plainly, like promotions, role changes, confidence in skills, and employer recognition.
3) The story was positive, but not uniform
Open-ended comments surfaced a familiar pattern.
Most alumni praised the educational experience and the flexibility of the model, while a smaller group highlighted inconsistency in instruction or support experiences.
This is exactly the kind of insight leadership teams can act on, because it points to a fixable gap.
Often, it is not a full-program problem. It is a consistency problem across instructors, advisors, or communication touchpoints.
This is where alumni research becomes more than a report.
The results provided a foundation to:
Here’s one concrete way this plays out.
Instead of saying “we offer flexible learning,” an enrollment page can say something closer to what alumni mean: flexible schedules for working adults, learning formats that fit real life, and support that helps you keep moving even when life gets busy.
Drive Research is a full-service market research firm that helps colleges and universities turn alumni feedback into clear, decision-ready insights. If you want reliable data to strengthen enrollment messaging, improve the alumni experience, and track progress over time, we can help.
Contact us to request a quote for alumni market research.
