Listening to Learners 2025
September 16, 2025 BlogListening to Learners 2025 Listening to Learners 2025 examines how student perspectives connect with institutional practices. The report…
Career Readiness and Financial Pressures at the Forefront of Student Support
Tyton Partners, with support from the Lumina Foundation and additional contributions from Mentor Collective, NACADA, QuadC, Stellic, and the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities, has released Driving Toward a Degree 2025: Delivering Value and Ensuring Viability. This year’s report explores how colleges and universities are navigating mounting financial pressures, persistent skepticism about the value of a degree, and rising expectations for career-aligned, equitable student support.
Drawing on insights from more than 3,000 students, advisors, faculty, and administrators across over 825 U.S. institutions, the study examines where institutions are struggling with high advising caseloads, limited coordination, and underused technology, and where they are innovating. It focuses on academic and career advising as critical drivers of both student success and institutional sustainability.
Driving Toward a Degree 2025 calls for integrating career readiness throughout the student journey, expanding nondegree credential opportunities, and leveraging tools like generative AI to extend capacity without sacrificing human connection. It emphasizes that student success is a strategic imperative in today’s environment, central to delivering value for learners and ensuring institutions’ long-term viability.
Key findings from the 2025 study include:
- Financial pressures intensify: Nearly 40% of four-year public institutions anticipate budget cuts to student support services over the next three years, while staffing shortages are pushing more than 70% of large and public institutions to increase advisor caseloads, despite high caseloads being the top barrier to effective advising.
- Career readiness as a value driver: Only 30% of staff at private four-year institutions strongly agree their institution is worth the cost, compared to ~70% at community colleges. This belief in their college’s value is directly predicted by the extent to which both students and staff believe their college prepares students for career success.
- Student engagement remains low: Less than half of students are aware of academic advising, and only 29% report using it, though almost all institutions offer it. Institutions that have reduced identity-based programming are significantly less likely to feel they are supporting a strong sense of belonging for all students.
- Generative AI adoption lags: While 30% of students pay for generative AI tools to support their studies, just 10% of frontline staff use them for job-related tasks, and only 3% use AI features in advising technologies—often due to distrust, lack of training, and poor system integration.