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MARKETING
Baby Boomers
are Out, Gen X’ers are In: A Generational Shift
in Parents
Coming to Your Campus Soon
Helicopters, Snowplows and Bulldozers
1.: anyone in higher education
administration knows this refers to parents, not
machinery – those baby boomer parents who
interfere, coerce, and threaten to get what they
want for their children attending your college
or university. As a business officer, you
interact (read: negotiate) with parents
on a daily basis over issues such as FERPA
requirements, bill due dates, financial aid
packages and using electronic billing and
payment services. And just as you have finally
mastered this demanding generation of parents,
in comes the next generation: the Gen X parent,
who is about make a move on your campus.
Baby Boomers are the post-World War II
generation born between 1946 and 1960. A giant
cohort of over 76 million men and women, they
are now beginning to enter retirement with a
vengeance. As the Baby Boomers retire and their
children graduate from your institutions this
spring, taking their place in the fall will be
Gen X parents, who will offer up a host of new
attitudes, beliefs and values that you are going
to have to deal with.
Generation X’ers were born between 1961 and
1981, reaching 46 years of age this year. They
were brought up in an era defined by major
social change: women entering the workforce,
divorce rates rising, fewer children with less
social/physical freedom. As children, their
social and family structure changed as quickly
as they grew, leaving them characterized as
skeptical, adaptable, pragmatic, “postmodern
transitionals.” 2.
Unlike the Baby Boomers, many of whom went to
college on a mission of peace, hope and free
love, the Gen X student was faced with suddenly
rising college costs in an inflation-rampant
era, and soon learned what the present value of
a college education really meant.
According to Dr. Mark Taylor, a social scientist
who has become known to the higher education
community through his “Generation NeXt Comes to
College” presentation and writings, the new Gen
X parent will demand more information of the
business office delivered quickly and
efficiently. They will ask more financial
questions and will expect immediate answers
on-line 24x7. “Gen Xers know how to use
technology, and unlike their Gen NeXt kids, who
use technology with their eyes closed but demand
simplicity, Gen Xers use technology to find
answers to their questions: to click through for
deeper levels of information, analyzing what
they find in search for the answer. They expect
technology, and they use it,” Dr. Taylor
explains.
What does this mean to your business office? It
means that your parent population will expect
more electronic services: online billing and
payment portals that serve up the detailed,
real-time account information they seek 24 x 7
to get the answers they demand. It means that
you will need to proactively add links from your
billing office page and your EBPP portal to your
online FAQ’s, payment plan calculators, live
chat channel, and email contacts. Soon, you will
not only have your student population to keep up
with technologically, but their parents as well.
Many schools are going to need help retooling
their systems, especially their business office/
financial services on-line gateways, to meet
these increased expectations for tech
convenience and availability of
information. Schools that can not provide this
will generate serious credibility problems for
themselves as sharp Gen X parents deduce, "If
they can't make these college financials as
available to me as my credit card, bank, and my
mortgage lender can, where else are they behind
the times, out of step, or falling down?”
The solution? Reach out to your ERP, payment
plan partners, and IT department to
establish online student account access, online
payments and bill presentment. Demand that these
transaction, processing and data systems are
integrated to ensure that real time billing data
is available to your customers and to
your administrative staff so they can address
these Gen X parents’ questions efficiently. The
next generational wave is about to come ashore –
rise up and meet their technology and
information needs head on.
-
Taylor, Mark (2006,
November) Helicopters, Snowplows, and
Bulldozers: Managing Students’ Parents.
The Bulletin, Association of College
Unions International. Available online at:
www.taylorprograms.org
-
Taylor, Mark (2007,
May) Generation NeXt Comes to College:
Understanding and Teaching Today’s
Postmodern Students in the Digital Age
(presentation)
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