Online Learners: Generational Influences on Expectations and Satisfaction

Earlier this year, I was interested to read RNL’s Generations of Online Learners report, which was produced by cross-tabbing our national survey of (largely) prospective online students by the three primary student generations. There has been greater awareness in recent years of the influence of generational differences in higher education, and this made me interested to explore the perceptions of students by age within our National Online Learners dataset.

These data reflect the responses to the RNL Priorities Survey for Online Learners (PSOL) over the past three academic years (fall 2021 through spring 2024), which now reflects a fully post-pandemic point of view. The total data represents 101,925 student records from 153 institutions. The PSOL asks students to indicate a level of importance and a level of satisfaction on a variety of experiences associated with their online study.

While the standard age categories used in the PSOL don’t exactly line up with the generational parameters, we can get close with these designations:

Age Indicator	Generational Designation
19-24	Gen Z
25-34	Millennial (One)
35-44	Millennial (Two)
45 -54	GenX

Tuition paid is a worthwhile investment

One of the high priority items on the PSOL is the perception of “Tuition paid is a worthwhile investment.”

Tuition paid is a worthwhile investment.

	Gen Z	Millennial (One)	Millennial (Two)	Gen X
Importance*	86%	89%	91%	92%
Satisfaction**	62%	67%	71%	76%

*% of students who indicated the item was important/very important
**% of students who indicated they were satisfied/very satisfied with this item

While this item is just 6 percent less important to Gen Z students than it is to Gen Xers, Gen Z students are 14 percent less satisfied than the Gen Xers. The older the student, the more likely they are to be satisfied with their tuition investment. What this says to online programs is you may need to more intentionally build the case for the investment of time and resources when you are recruiting and looking to retain Gen Z students (the primary “traditional age” student cohort) than you may need to be when recruiting (and seeking to retain) either Millennials or Gen X online students.

Items of less importance to Gen Z/more important to Gen X

Three other items stand out as being much less important to Gen Z students than they are to Gen X students:

• This institution has a good reputation.
• Factor to enroll: Reputation of the institution
• Source of information: Catalog (online)

Each of these items saw at least 10 percent less importance among Gen Z online students when compared with Gen X.

This could be considered in the reverse: these items are actually more important to older students than they are younger students. If you are an online program that is specifically looking to recruit online learners who are older, you may want to emphasize your overall reputation and include reliable resources that speak to the quality of the education you are providing.

These Gen X ratings may be (at least in part) due to a lack of exposure that this generation had to online learning options when they were younger; they may need more evidence that online learning is an acceptable way to get a degree. In addition, older online students may be more accustomed to reviewing catalogs and expecting to see a complete catalog as an online resource as they are determining their program and direction for course work.

Conversely, the relative lack of concern that Gen Z students give to issues of reputation (likely as a placeholder for “quality” of the program) is likely an indicator of their comfort with the online modality – which for them does not represent something experimental or new. Particularly after the pandemic (and their exposure to online or remote learning) they may not have loved those experiences, but they did become quite comfortable with them.

Five areas where Gen Z students are much less satisfied than Gen X

There were a number of factors for which Gen Z online students indicated satisfaction levels which are 10 percent or more lower than among Gen X online students.

Faculty provide timely feedback about student progress.

	Gen Z	Millennial (One)	Millennial (Two)	Gen X
Satisfaction*	66%	71%	73%	76%

*% of students who indicated they were satisfied/very satisfied with this item

The quality of instruction is excellent.

	Gen Z	Millennial (One)	Millennial (Two)	Gen X
Satisfaction*	65%	70%	72%	76%

*% of students who indicated they were satisfied/very satisfied with this item

Adequate financial aid is available.

	Gen Z	Millennial (One)	Millennial (Two)	Gen X
Satisfaction*	59%	66%	68%	70%

*% of students who indicated they were satisfied/very satisfied with this item

I receive timely information on the availability of financial aid.

	Gen Z	Millennial (One)	Millennial (Two)	Gen X
Satisfaction*	64%	72%	74%	74%

*% of students who indicated they were satisfied/very satisfied with this item

This institution responds quickly when I request information.

	Gen Z	Millennial (One)	Millennial (Two)	Gen X
Satisfaction*	68 %	76 %	78 %	80 %

*% of students who indicated they were satisfied/very satisfied with this item

These data make it clear that the youngest online students are clearly less satisfied with their experience than are older generations. Note that all respondents are in fully online programs and are not reflecting any of the “emergency remote learning” that occurred during the pandemic – a period that precedes the data collection window. Having said this, these younger students may be more ready to be critical of fully online learning due to possible pandemic-era remote learning experiences. Alternatively, their lifelong exposure to all things online may just make them have higher expectations of their online programs than older students. As we have documented elsewhere, their expectations may be informed by the many other highly personalized and speedy online interactions they have in other spheres of their lives.

The results reflected here provide an opportunity for online programs to consider the student populations they are targeting for recruitment purposes and how they can best retain them through to completion of the program – and thereby maximize their student success outcomes. Targeted initiatives and communication related to these priority areas for younger students may best serve institutions with achieving their goals, recognizing that students in different age groups have different perceptions and perspectives that they bring with them to the higher education experience.

Survey your students

The most relevant and useful data points that will maximize student success are always specific to each institution. For this reason, it is important that institutions (and in this case online programs) need to survey their own student population to identify areas of importance and satisfaction (and dissatisfaction). Once you have data for your own institution (or online program), you can isolate it by various demographics and then target your activities for subpopulations that may be less satisfied with their experience. The work you do to gather student feedback data, to explore it for insights and to use it to inform actions will have the greatest impact on student success.

Contact me if you would like to learn more about administering the Priorities Survey for Online Learners with your students.

I also invite you to download the 2024 National Student Satisfaction and Priorities Report to learn more about the perceptions of students by class level in traditional and online programs