As the higher education industry continues to adjust to a new normal in preparation for the 2025 demographics cliff, understanding the core student audience is critical. Carnegie learns about this audience primarily through ongoing national survey research of incoming students. In this session, Carnegie’s SVP of Research will review the major findings of this year’s survey, which includes opinions and perceptions from more than 14,000 graduating seniors from our CollegeXpress service. The findings include a look at factors of school choice, the platforms students are using today, how information seeking about college has shifted, and how young people are evaluating the informational currency of social media posts. Overall, this session will be a great primer to our 70-page graduating seniors report.