A closer look at the next generation of students

Gen Alpha filters out generic admissions campaigns. Learn how program-specific and affinity-based marketing earns attention, inquiries and enrollment.

Chrome kept third-party cookies — but the tracking model is still eroding. Why first-party data is now the foundation of college enrollment marketing.

How predictive attention testing catches invisible CTAs, unseen deadlines and wasted ad spend in higher-ed campaigns — before media dollars go out.

Gen Alpha discovers colleges through a blended ecosystem: traditional search, social search on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, peer and creator content and AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. Colleges need presence in all three layers — including AEO/GEO, structuring content so AI systems can interpret, summarize and cite it.

The Common App opens for Gen Alpha — students born starting in 2010, the high school class of 2028 — on August 1, 2027. Because college search behavior forms in sophomore and junior year, 2026 is the last full year for enrollment teams to modernize content, channels, web experience and data infrastructure before Gen Alpha application volume arrives.

Gen Alpha starts applying to college in August 2027. See how they differ from Gen Z and what enrollment marketers must change now to recruit them.

Mobile-first isn't responsive design. See what vertical video, modular creative, SMS and thumb-friendly landing pages mean for Gen Alpha recruitment.